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THE NATIONS AT WAR 



THE NATIONS 


AT WAR 


BY 


WILLIS J ABBOT 


AUTHOR OF 


"PANAMA AND THE CANAL," 

"the STORY OF OUR NAVY," 

"THE STORY OF OUR ARMY" 

"AIRCRAFT AND SUBMARINES" 


WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DRAWINGS 
BY THE FOREMOST WAR ARTISTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS 
TAKEN IN THE FIELD BY EXPERTS OF EVERY NATION 


THE 1918 EDITION 


LESLIE-JUDGE CO. 

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 









Copyright, iqiS, 
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 

All Rights Reserved 



MAY -7 1918 



©CI.A494939 



^ \ 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I. 

German Responsibility for the War — Diplomacy and Intrigue — The Austrian 
Ultimatum — The Declaration of War — France Springing to Arms — England and 
Belgium — Invasion of Belgium — Comparative Military Strength of Belligerents — 
British Military Preparations — The Fall of Liege — German " Frightfulness" in Bel- 
gium — Louvain — The Rush on Paris — Battle of the Marne i 

CHAPTER II. 

Battle of the Aisne — The German Blunder at Calais — Reaching Out on the Coast — 
The Occupation of Antwerp — A Populace in Flight — Germans Reach the Sea — Hard 
Fighting in Flanders — The French in Alsace-Lorraine — Christmas in the Trenches . . . 31 

CHAPTER III. 

The War in the East — Russia Strikes First — German Troops Called from France 
— Battle of Tannenburg — First Appearance of Hindenburg — Austria in the War — The 
Fighting in Poland — Freachery in Russian Camps — The Long Struggle for Warsaw — 
Sweeping German Successes — Death of Lord Kitchener — Galicia and Bukovina — Dis- 
tress of Austria — Russia's Internal Weakness — The Monk R-isputin 67 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Pan-German Plan — The Kaiser's Diplomatic Pilgrimage — The "Goeben" and 
"Breslau" — Turkey in the War — The Hesitation of Greece — The Crushing of Serbia — 
Roumania's Overthrow — The Dardanelles — Armenia and Mesopotamia — Fall of Bag- 
dad and Jerusalem 103 

CHAPTER V. 

The Navies in the War — Zeal of the Germans — British Control the Seas — The 
End of the Commerce Destroyers — Battle off Falkland Islands — Battle of the Bight 
of Heligoland — Weddigen's Exploit — Battle of Coronel — Battle off Dogger Bank — 
Bombardment of British Coastwise Towns — Battle of Jutland 123 

CHAPTER VI. 

The War in the Air — Duels in the Skies — Raids on England — The United States 
Enters Aeronautics — The Brief Boer Revolt — War in Asia and Africa — Fate of the 
German Colonies — The Rebellion in Ireland — The Career of the "Emden" — Mucke's 
Amazing Retreat '59 

CHAPTER VII. 

Again the West — The French Offensive in Champagne — The British Operations 
about Loos and Lens — The Historic Battle of Verdun — Nature of the Fortress- 
Boasts of the Germans — "They Shall Not Pass!" — The Road to Verdun — French Vic- 
tory — Heavy Losses of the Germans — Battle of the Somme — Fighting at Peronne — The 
British Tanks— Battle of Arras 179 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Italy in the War — Why the Triple Alliance was Broken — D'Annunzio's Appeal for 
War — Early Italian Successes — Sturdy Resistance of Gorizia — The Austrian Counte r 
Attack — Italy Rallies — Gorizia Falls — Trieste Menaced — Treachery in Italian Ranks 
— The Great Disaster 215 

CHAPTER IX. 

The Russian Revolution — Degradation of the Court — Ease with which the Govern- 
ment was Overthrown — Abdication of the Czar — The Army with the People — Lenine 
and Trotzky — German Intrigues — Failure of the Brest-Litovsk Conference — The 
Outlook 2J5 

CHAPTER X. 

The United States and the War — The Long Submarine Controversy — Sinking of 
the "Lusitania" — The Presidential Campaign — Activity of Pacifists — German Diplo- 
matic Intrigues — Dumba and Count BernstorfF — Germany's Final Ultimatum — Von 
Bernstorff Dismissed — The United States Declares War 255 

CHAPTER XT. 

Military and Naval Weakness of the United States — Our Financial Strength — 
Ships and Aircraft — The Government takes the Railroads — Food Regulation — The 
Call to Arms — Success of Conscription — Method of the Draft — Rapid Increase of 
Army and Navy — Our Men Abroad 275 

CHAPTER XII. 

Moving the Armv to Europe — Our Soldiers in Training — The Ship Shortage — Loss 
of the "Tuscania"— Americans in Action — Proportions of the Great War — ItsCost in Life 311 



INTRODUCTION 

TO tell the story of the Great War, now approaching the end of its fourth year, 
in a single volume is a difficult but by no means an impossible task. 
The salient features of the struggle, the great clashes of armies, the sharp 
actions which won this or that point of high vantage for one or the other belligerent 
can readily be described in swift phrases without sacrifice of the picturesque. Verdun 
was fought over for more than two years, yet after the first four days of fighting the 
story of Verdun is but one of persistent attack and dogged resistance along lines that 
changed hardly a score of yards in as many weeks. The true story of Verdun is the 
story of the almost spiritual consecration which held the French to its defense so long. 
But that is a story which takes little time for the telling. 

I have seen two volumes given to an account of the Battle of Gettysburg which 
lasted three days. I have seen, too, eighteen volumes given over to the history of 
this great war up to the beginning of the year 191 7. But the former was a treatise 
intended for the professional tactician; the latter a very excellent history in which the 
multitude of military details, interesting chiefly to the specialist, are set forth with so 
much particularity that the reader can not see the battles for the multitude of sub- 
sidiary things by which the picture is obscured. 

To Americans, particularly, is a clear, straightforward and brief description of this 
war a most desirable work. We are in it up to the hilt; in it with a determination to 
conquer. But nevertheless we are in it somewhat to our own amaze, and the most 
determined among us may be pardoned if now and again he stops to ask just why a 
nation loving peace and strongly set against European entanglements should be thus 
embroiled. 

This book tells with painstaking and dispassionate accuracy of the causes of the 
war, and of the developments that made it inevitable that the United States should 
take up its part of the bloody burder of which magnificent France, and devoted 
Britain so long bore the major share. And the author feels that he has fallen short of 
his fullest purpose if he has not shown that something deeper and more fundamental 
than the submarine outrages furnished the real reason for the entry of the United 
States upon a war that shall crush autocracy and militarism and make the world safe 
for its people. 

The political strategy of this war has been no less important, no less interesting than 
its military operations, and in this book the fullest attention has been paid to this 
feature. Why Italy was justified in repudiating its ancient alliance with the Teutonic 
empires; what justification the Allies had for landing troops on Greek soil after de- 
nouncing Germany for violating Belgian neutrality; what Bolshevism promised and 
what it did; why Bagdad was worth fighting for are all matters somewhat in con- 
troversy but here made clear. 

This war cannot be properly visualized in all its various phases, scenes and charac- 
teristics without the lavish use of pictures. The illustrations in this book exceed in 
number any collection made for an historical work. They are in the main from photo- 
graphs taken at the front and accurately representative of the scenes and places more 



INTRODUCTION 

haltingly described in the text. Scores of photographers have risked their lives that 
the world may know what war is like, and the reader of "The Nations at War" gets 
the carefully skimmed cream of their work. 

This edition — the fourth to be issued — of "The Nations at War" brings the narra- 
tive down to March, 1918. From it is omitted no vital, no significant episode of the 
titanic struggle which is beggaring the world today. The reader is conducted by 
paths of pleasant narrative through the long and cruel way from the opening of the 
Austrian howitzers upon Liege, to the betrayal of Russia by the Bolsheviki. When 
he has ended he knows that story of the war in all its horror, and in all the glorious 
stimulation it furnishes to manhood. 

With knowledge thus gained no American can doubt that the course adopted by his 
country alter much questioning and self-communion was the only one in accord with 
its standing among nations, and with its national honor. We have had but few wars 
and, please God, shall have fewer in future. Our only war not fought specifically for 
national defense was in a cause purely altruistic, and as thoroughly humanitarian 
as any issue on which a civilized people has ever taken up arms. Its righteousness is 
shown by free and prosperous Cuba, and the orderly and advancing Philippines. 

The war in which we are now engaged is a war for the extinction of war. We are 
in it technically to protect our people who go down into the sea in ships from the 
murderous aggressions of the Germans. But the whole purpose is broader and more 
far-reaching. We send our sons to the trenches, mobilize our daughters in auxiliary 
forces, give heartily of our savings and endure privations in order that war lords may 
be shown for all time that possession of the tools of a robber and murderer gives no 
license to use them, and that peace-loving, industrious and God-fearing states shall 
no longer be condemned to constant dread of the murderous assaults of autocracies 
which have devoted their highest endeavors to the heaping up of cannon and explo- 
sives, and the transformation of their citizens into skilled and ruthless soldiery. Our 
soldiers will die in war that the world may live in peace. 

WILLIS J. ABBOT 

New York, March i, 1918. 



NATIONS 
AT WAR 



CHAPTER I 



GERMAN RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE WAR — DIPLOMACY AND INTRIGUE 

THE AUSTRIAN ULTIMATUM — THE DECLARATION OF WAR — FRANCE SPRING- 
ING TO ARMS — ENGLAND AND BELGIUM INVASION OF BELGIUM — COM- 
PARATIVE MILITARY STRENGTH OF BELLIGERENTS BRITISH MILITARY 

PREPARATIONS — THE FALL OF LIEGE — GERMAN " FRIGHTFULNESS " IN 
BELGIUM LOUVAIN — THE RUSH ON PARIS — BATTLE OF THE MARNE 



1 



^T^HE Great War fell 
like a scourge on 
humanity and 
millions of men 
who had no thought of war 
or bloodshed in their minds 
laid down their lives because 
a group of men, dominant 
in the German Empire, so 
willed it. No other verdict 
is possible in the light of 
history. And it is important 
that the verdict be fixed in 
the consciousness of nations 
for when the war shall end 
the damages must be as- 
sessed, so far as that may 
be humanly possible, and 
they must be laid against 
the government responsible 
— namely Imperial Ger- 
many. 

It is needless to go into detail here concern- 
ing the prolonged struggle in the southeast 
of Europe between the Slavs and the Teu- 
tons, out of which grew the jealousies ending 
in war. It would be idle in a volume of such 
brief compass as this to attempt to recount 



all the clashes of rival nationalities in the Bal- 
kans. The Pan-German ambitions of the 
Teutons, the glittering conception of a 
Mittel Europa under Hohenzollern control 
must for the moment be passed over. The 
quarrel over France in Morocco, the crisis 
of Agadir must be ignored. Enough to say 
here that all the materials for a blaze that 
should engulf all Europe were in south- 
eastern Europe, and when the assassination, 
by a fanatic, of the Archduke Ferdinand, 
heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and 
his morganatic wife at Sarajevo, in Bosnia, 
June 28, 1914, touched the match to the 
pile Germany heaped on more combustibles 
instead of joining other nations of western 
Europe in endeavors to extinguish the con- 
flagration. 

The youth who slew the royal pair escaped 
with a brief term of imprisonment, but more 
than five million men of all countries of the 
world paid the death penalty for his crime. 

The German autocracy, the military caste, 
had long sought war. The Crown Prince 
of Germany had repeatedly said that if no 
war came under his father's rule he himself 
would start one on coming to the throne. 
Ambassador Gerard quotes him as having 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Archduke I' rancis Ferdinand (heir to the Austrian throne) with his morganatic wife. Both were assassinated at Sarajevo, Bosnia, 

June 28, 1914 



said that the plan would be to attack and 
conquer Fiance, then England and after 
that the United States. Whatever Prussian- 
ized Germany is to-day, it has been made by 
war. Frederick the Great, founder of Prus- 
sia's greatness, by his own admission went 
to war " in order to get myself talked about. " 
Napoleon forcefully said, "Prussia was 
hatched from cannon-balls." 

To-day Prussia dominates all Germany, 
and in 1914 as since, the military caste 
dominated Prussia. But prior to the war 
there were incidents which made that caste 
fear for its continuance in power. Its grow- 
ing arrogance was a source of constant irrita- 
tion to the people. A beardless and penni- 
less subaltern in a uniform untarnished by 
service held himself immeasurably the supe- 
rior of a captain of industry whose life work 
had been worth uncounted millions to the 
Empire — and all the power of the army was 
exerted to maintain his pretensions. The 
political agitation which followed the affair 
at Zabern, in which a young officer cut 
down a crippled shoemaker who laughed at 
him, showed that the country was ripe for 
revolt against military arrogance. The army 
recognized that to hold its privileges a war 
would be essential. 

And it thought to have a short war. When 
the Kaiser, speaking from the portal of his 



♦palace on the day of mobilization, assured the 
soldiers below: " Before the leaves have fallen 
from the trees you will be back in your 
homes," he undoubtedly expressed what was 
his sincere belief. Ambassador Gerard has 
since hazarded the conjecture that perhaps 
he was thinking of evergreen trees. At that 
moment Great Britain had not signified her 
purpose of entering upon the war, and all 
Germany believed that their armies would 
romp to Pans, strike France to her knees, 
seize her colonies, and then demolish Russia 
at their leisure. 

There were plausible reasons which the 
militarists could urge for forcing a war at 
this moment. Germany was never stronger 
relatively to the other powers. Her fleet, 
it is true, was still vastly inferior to that of 
Great Britain, but it was superior to that ot 
France and there was every reason to believe 
that the British would keep out of the war. 
The German Ambassador to London had so 
reported. Prince Henry, the Kaiser's brother, 
had telegraphed that he had assurance, to 
that effect from King George. The Irish 
disaffection was at its height, and Sir Ed- 
ward Carson's spectacular organization of an 
army in Ulster to set at defiance the laws of 
Parliament gave to foreign observers an 
exaggerated idea of its importance. 

The Kiel Canal had just been opened 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



doubling almost the efficiency of the German 
fleet. The Zeppelins had been brought to 
such perfection that German military author- 
ities thought they would be a decisive factor 
in the war — an expectation destined to be 
sadly disappointed. The war chest was full 
to overflowing; 317,000,000 marks in gold 
in the German Imperial Bank, where two 
years before there had been but 174,000,000. 
Among the High Command it was known 
that the army chemists had perfected a new 
and deadly weapon — an asphyxiating gas that 
clung close to the face of the earth, and rolled 
along before a favoring breeze. Nothing 
living could withstand a breath of it. The 
German army was at its greatest proportions, 
while the French law calling for three years' 
military service, and the Belgian law for 
universal service had not yet gone into 
effect. 

It was easy for the militarists to convince 
the handful of men — the people had nothing 
whatever to say — with whom rested the 
authority to declare war or peace, that if 
Germany was ever to strike that was the 
moment. 

After the assassination of the royal couple 
in June it seemed for some time that the 
incident as a casus belli would pass over as 
so many had before it. It was discussed in 
the dark and devious ways of secret diplo- 
macv, but the world had forgotten it and was 



going its peaceful ways when on the 23 rd of 
July the government of Austria dispatched 
to Servia an ultimatum so arrogant in its 
demands, so brutal in its terms that the 
world suddenly awoke to the fact that this 
meant war. It practically demanded that 
Servia surrender its sovereignty, put Austrian 
officials in charge of its courts, and permit 
its people to be tried by Austrian tribunals. 
Forty-eight hours was allowed for a re- 
sponse — a period which as George Bernard 
Shaw remarked "would have been indecent 
in presenting a board bill. " When the 
threatened nation conceded almost every- 
thing — more than any other country expected 
it to concede — Austria backed by Germany 
remorselessly adhered to the letter of its 
ultimatum and began the bombardment of 
Belgrade on the day fixed. 

Europe was of course divided into hostile 
camps and alliances. Germany, Austria and 
Italy constituted the Triple Alliance or 
Dreibund. But Italy was bound only to 
aid the others in case of an attack upon 
their territory- Accordingly she held aloof 
from her allies for nearly a year, and finally 
entered the war as an ally of their enemies — 
the Triple Entente, of England, France and 
Russia, with whom the agonies of invasion 
united Belgium. Pending the outbreak of 
war we find each group of nations working 
in concert diplomatically. England, France 




The arrest of the assassin of the Archduke. Although Austria declared that the plot originated in Belgrade, it has never 
been definitely proved, and it is known that the assassin is an Austrian subject 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 







This photograph was taken amidst bursting shells, and shows the Belgian soldiers in the trenches 



and Russia strove to avert war; Germany 
and Austria to provoke it. 

After the Austrian ultimatum had been 
delivered the wires buzzed with the endeavors 
of the peace seeking nations to check the 
rush to war. England took the lead. Look- 
ing back on those crowded days of diplomatic 
effort one is convinced that Great Britain 
sincerely desired that peace be kept, but 
also that her foreign secretary, Sir Edward 
Grey, omitted the one thing necessary to 
secure it. Until the last moment he left the 
German ambassador to London in doubt 
whether jn any contingency whatsoever 
Great Britain would fight. The general 
temper of the British people was so clearly 
against war, and there seemed to be so many 
conditions making their entrance upon war 
at that moment more than ordinarilv pre- 
carious, that Ambassador Lichnowsky re- 
ported from London that Great Britain could 
safely be counted upon as neutral. Believing 
this Germany pursued its provocative course. 
The Kaiser and his advisers were never so 
astonished and dismaved as when notice 
came of the British declaration of war, and 
the populace of Germany straightway began 
the development and practice of that policy 
of hate which may have kept them a unit 



in the war, but certainly made them ridicu- 
lous in the eyes of other peoples. 

But prior to taking the final step Sir Ed- 
ward Grev exhausted every device to secure 
peace, or at least to delav the declaration of 
war. His notes flew along the wires to every 
chancellery of Europe. He urged that Vien- 
na and Petrograd discuss the situation direct- 
ly; that the case between Russia and Austria 
be left to the other four Great Powers — 
Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy. 
But Austria turned a deaf ear to all sugges- 
tions, while Germany insisted that the quar- 
rel between Austria and Servia should be 
fought out by those parties alone, and that 
England should restrain her ally Russia. 
While urging this, Germany stolidly refused 
to restrain or even openly to advise her ally 
Austria. In all the records of diplomatic 
correspondence issued by Germany and Aus- 
tria in a belated effort to escape the odium of 
having caused the world war there is not one 
letter or dispatch from the former to the 
latter urging delay, moderation or concilia 
tory tactics. It is evident that the policy 
of the Kaiser was to preach ostentatiously 
to the world his desire for peace, while giving 
private assurances to Austria of support in 
all that she might do to make peace impossible. 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



5 



The die was cast August ist, 1914, when 
Germany formally declared war upon Russia 
upon the ground that the mobilization of 
that country was a menace to Germany- 
It is alleged, and with convincing proof, that 
in fact the German government tricked 
Russia into this mobilization. A Berlin 
newspaper, controlled absolutely by the gov- 
ernment, appeared on the streets with the 
news that the War Department had ordered 
the mobilization of the army- The paper 
was allowed to circulate until the news was 
widely disseminated, and could not have 
failed to reach the Russian ambassador. 
Then it was suddenly called in, all copies 
sequestrated and an extra issued denying the 
mobilization. Meantime the "news" had 
been wired to Russia, and mobilization or- 
dered there for fear that the German armies 
were already in motion. It seems a petti- 
fogging trick to accomplish an execrable 
purpose. But since Bismarck — a man in- 
comparably greater than any in power in 
Germany to-day — did not scruple to forge 
the telegram of Ems to bring on the Franco- 
Prussian War at the moment he wished, it 
is not inconceivable that the Kaiser and his 
entourage may have hurried the war for which 
•they were eager, by the device, familiar to 
American cities, of a "faked extra." 

Germany's declaration of war upon Russia 



determined automatically France's entrance 
upon the struggle. No nation desired war 
less; none was at that moment enjoving 
more the blessings of peace and contentment. 
Her prosperity and widespread happiness 
were such that; the world was a little inclined 
to rate her as decadent — a theory which she 
disproved before the guns had roared for 
thirty days. But, however, averse to war, 
France was compelled to enter it both by 
her treaty obligations to Russia and by con- 
siderations of self-protection. Germany was 
the wolf hungry for her blood, and her terri- 
tory- All the prodigious military prepara- 
tion of the German Empire had been made 
avowedly with the purpose of crushing 
France, extorting more indemnity and seizing 
more territory. The theft of Alsace-Lor- 
raine in 1870 had made Germany the greatest 
iron and steel producer in Europe. If she 
could now get the line of northern provinces 
with the cities of Lens, Lille and neighboring 
mineral fields she would be the only conti- 
nental producer of iron and steel in large quan- 
tities. France knew that she faced spoliation 
again, faced mutilation, perhaps faced final 
assassination and her people rose with a 
grandeur of determination which baffles de- 
scription while it compels admiration. There 
was perhaps no more stimulating sight to 
the thoughtful mind than the spectacle of 




1* l nderwood i.v l ulhtwuuu 
["he Imperial Guard passing in review before Emperor William. At the left of the Kaiser is General l.owenfeldt and at the 

extreme right Genera! von Buelow 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




King Albert of Belgium, the fighting king of Europe 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



Belgian Ca 

Her little 



the Paris regiments going to the 
front. It was no martial pageant. 
Never headed by a military band, 
the men often marched along 
without either drum or bugle. 
They never sang — as did the 
Germans under orders. But 
every now and then some one 
would set up a deep determined 
intonation of a patriotic watch- 
word. " Jusqu'au boutV "Unto 
the end !" was one — "France 
d ' abord!" — "France first" and 
" Coute que coute!" — "Cost what 
it may ! " were others. They went 
out against heavy odds, but they 
acquitted themselves like a 
nation born to a new immortality. 

England's position at the outset 
of war was one to disprove the 
charge that she helped to pro- 
voke it. She was utterly un- 
prepared for war except by sea. 
army of perhaps 1 50,000 men was scattered 
beyond the seas. Her people not only did 
not want war, but did not even dream that 
it was impending. Her political offices, 
army, navy and diplomatic services were full 
of German sympathizers and even of German 
spies. Except perhaps in France the ex- 
ecrable system of German espionage had 
nowhere reached such development as in 
England. Every branch of society was 
honeycombed by it, and the whole attitude 
of the British people when sud- 
denly confronted by the prospect 
of war with Germany was inevi- 
tably tinctured by the views art- 
fully instilled for years by Ger- 
man secret agents. 

No actual treaty forced Eng- 
land into war. She was perhaps 
morally bound to France but not 
by ties so compelling that a 
government facing a people in- 
tent on peace could make them 
the sole basis of appeal. And 
the English people, many of the 
politicians and most of their 
press were for peace. Sir Edward 
Grey and other cabinet officers 
saw that the German menace was 
as much against England as 
against France. The fevered 
navy building, the ill-concealed 
malevolence of "Der Tag," the 




International News Service 
valry passing through Furness on then- way to the f.o..t 

revelations of the spy system all showed 
England as the future object of German 
aggression. The nation must fight, but an 
excuse must be given to the people for asking 
them to fight. While the cabinet was still 
in indecision this excuse was furnished by 
Germany. 

The determination of that government to 
attack France through the neutral territories 
of Belgium and the Duchy of Luxembourg 
put that nation in the wrong at the very 
outset of the war, alienated public sentiment 




The results of one well-directed shot from a German 42-centimeter gun. It 
completely wrecked this Belgian fort 



8 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



all over the world and furnished the British 
government with the grounds for demanding 
that the people uphold them in making com- 
mon cause with France and Russia. For this 
was a wanton violation of a treaty to which 
Great Britain itself was a party. 

By a treaty 
made in 1839, and 
reaffirmed in 1 870, 
Great Britain, 
Russia, Prussia — 
the German Em- 
pire not having 
been in existence 
at that time — 
agreed to mutu- 
ally defend the 
neutrality of Bel- 
gium. Inthe 
emergency of 191 4 
France promptly 
declared her pur- 
pose of respecting 
that neutrality. 
Germany, though 
a party to the 
treaty, admitted, 
at Sir Edward 
Grey's demand, 
her intention of 
violating it. 

It was a dis- 
honest and dis- 
honorable deci- 
sion and cost the 
Germans dear. It 
was dictated ab- 
solutely by the 
determination to 
win victory with 
all possible speed, 
and it ended in 
making victory 
impossible. It 
was conceived in 
a cowardly intent 
to outrage a 
friendly but weak 
nation, rather 
than to assault 

boldly the line of forts which France had 
erected for self-defense, and the outcome 
was that Germany made for herself two 
powerful enemies in Belgium and Great 
Britain, neither of whom, possibly, would 
have entered the war had Germany not 



thrown honor to the winds. Undoubtedly, 
too, the ultimate entrance of the United 
States as a foe to the Kaiser was based in 
some degree upon resentment of the treat- 
ment of Belgium. 

Immediately after the Franco-Prussian 







1 he armed liust of the Kaiser poured into Belgium during the harvest and destroyed everything in its 

path 

war of 1870 the French recognized that their 
powerful and aggressive neighbor did not 
intend to permit France to rest in peace. 
The German maw had gulped Alsace-Lor- 
raine and the five milliards of tribute and 
was hungry for more. Indeed, in 1875, Bis- 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



marck had tried to provoke another war 
but was warned oft" by England. Then 
France, still bleeding from cruel wounds, saw 
clearly enough that she must prepare to 
defend her soil once more. Accordingly she 
built the line of ponderous fortresses that 
frowned upon the frontier, between the 
Swiss border and that of Luxembourg — 
the only part of France directly bordering 
upon Germany. The Belgian frontier was 
left undefended. It was a nation from which 
nothing was to be feared, and the neutrality 



repudiating their own treaty and violating 
Belgian neutrality. It is quite true that the 
one of these fortresses they did attack — Ver- 
dun — resisted them successfully through per- 
sistent assaults lasting over two years. But 
this attack was begun after a year of war had 
produced new defensive tactics. The com- 
parative worthlessness of ponderous fortifica- 
tions had been demonstrated. The position 
at Verdun was defended; the fortress itself 
was abandoned, its stone casemates and gal- 
leries used for storage and cookshops and its 




Kins; t 



jtrorge inspecting 



portion oi the British expeditionary forces 



of which was guaranteed by the strongest 
nations of Europe including Prussia. Only 
one fortress, that of Mauberge, was situated 
on that border, and it was largely dismantled. 
France, too trustingly, relied upon Teutonic 
honor. 

Fronting the German frontier were the 
fortresses of Verdun, Toul, Epinal and Bel- 
fort. In the light of recent history it seems 
probable that had the Germans played the 
part of men and attacked these fortresses 
at the very outset of the war they would 
have demolished them with their heavy artil- 
lery and opened their road to Paris without 
bringing upon themselves the odium of 



great guns taken away and mounted in the 
earthworks that spread far and wide over 
the adjacent hills. This defense was the 
fruit of experience gained in more than a 
year of actual war. In its first days the 
French would probably have shut themselves 
up in their fortresses, as did the Belgians at 
Liege and Namur, and been destroyed by 
the unprecedented and undreamed-of Ger- 
man 42-cm. howitzers. 

However, the Germans made no movement 
toward attacking France on its defended 
side. It was made plain enough later that 
for years they had contemplated attack 
through Belgium. The plan of their strategic 



IO 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Recruits from the Bavarian mountains arriving at Munich to enter the army 



railroads demonstrated that. And with 
knowledge of this intent full in mind the 
queries of Sir Edward Grey to the German 
ambassador at London, and of Sir Edward 
Goschen to the Chancellor at Berlin as to 
Germany's purpose of respecting or violating 
Belgian neutrality became embarrassing. It 
was with unfeigned amazement that the 
German chancellor finally discovered that 
upon this issue Great Britain would fight. 
"You surely would not fight for a mere scrap 
of paper," said the German ambassador to 
Sir Edward Grey, referring to the treaty of 
1 870 which bore the royal seal of the Kingdom 




© International Xe 
Belgian infantry, barricaded, awaiting the advancing Uhlans 



of Prussia. The cynical expres- 
sion, with its implied indiffer- 
ence to treaty obligations, has 
cursed Germany sorely ever 
since. It was not without 
its influence three years later 
when President Wilson in 
reply to the peace overtures 
of the Pope, declared in 
effect that nations could enter 
into no treaties with the Ho- 
henzollerns with any expecta- 
tion that their obligations 
would be respected. 

August 2, 1914, Germans 
began the invasion of France 
by marching their troops with 
cynical indifference to treaty 
obligations into the Duchy of 
Luxembourg. The Duchess 
of that little independent state 
drove her carriage upon the bridge by which 
the Germans were advancing and turned it to 
bar their further progress, but a German officer, 
with a laugh, seized the horses by the bits and 
turned them aside while the gray-green 
flood of the invaders moved on. A little 
more ceremony marked the invasion of Bel- 
gium. Formal request was made of King 
Albert for permission to move the troops 
through his territory, and guarantees of 
protection of property and life, and withdraw- 
al of military occupation after the war were 
made. 

"Belgium is a nation, not a highway, "was 
the King's response. The 
country, small and weak as it 
was in the face of the over- 
whelming might of the aggres- 
sor, was a unit behind him. 
When he recounted the Ger- 
man propositions later to the 
Parliament and asked, "Are 
you determined at any cost to 
maintain the sacred heritage 
of our ancestors?" the whole 
Chamber burst into a roar, 
and from the Socialists' side 
came cries of: "At any cost, 
by death if need be ! " 

A day later the German 
troops entered Belgium. As 
the war proceeded admissions 
of the complete lawlessness 
of this invasion were made 
by the very highest of the 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



n 



German rulers. In the Reichstag, Minister 
von Jagow said : 

"We are now in a state of necessity and 
necessity knows no law! We were compelled 
to override the just protest of the Luxem- 
bourg and Belgian governments. The wrong 
— I speak openly — that we are committing 
we will endeavor to make good as soon as 
our military goal has been reached." And 
later, in a personal letter to President Wilson, 
transmitted through Ambassador Gerard. 
Kaiser William declared that "Belgian neu- 



once Europe began to fall to pieces like a 
house of cards. Declarations of war fol- 
lowed each other in rapid succession until 
it was apparent that the whole civilized 
world — and some countries on the borderland 
of civilization — would be involved. The 
historian is reminded forcibly of Macaulay's 
description of the way Frederick the Great 
plunged the world in war: 

"On the head of Frederick is all the blood 
which was shed in a war waged during many 
years and in every quarter of the globe — the 




Belgian cavalry resting after an engagement with the German forces 



trality had to be violated by Germany on 
strategical grounds, news having been received 
that France was already preparing to enter 
Belgium, and the King of the Belgians having 
refused my petition for a free passage under 
guarantee of his country's freedom." 

These "preparations" of France for a 
Belgian invasion must have been of a curious 
character, for when the Germans actually 
struck, and came rushing upon France 
through King Albert's territory, it took days 
for French troops to reach the point of attack. 
They were all on the other side of France 
facing the frontier of Germany. 

Deaf alike to the dictates of honor and 
the protests of Great Britain, Germany, ac- 
cording to its threat, invaded Belgium. At 



blood of the column of Fontenoy, the blood 
of the mountaineers who were slaughtered 
at Culloden. The evils produced by his 
wickedness were felt in lands where the 
name of Prussia was unknown; and in order 
that he might rob a neighbor whom he had 
promised to defend, black men fought on 
the coast of Coromandel, and red men scalped 
each other by the Great Lakes of North 
America." 

At the outset it appeared that the odds 
against the Teutons were irresistible — after 
experiencing nearly four years of German 
warfare the world no longer thinks so, al- 
though the odds have grown greater ever 
since. Within a few days of the declaration 
of war Germany and Austria-Hungary were 



12 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




British troops on their w ay to tin- front taking a short rest 
after a long march 

faced by France, Great Britain, Belgium, 
Russia, Serbia and Japan.* While the dis- 
parity in population seemed great, in military 
efficiency it vanished altogether. Against a 
population of 114,900,000 it was true were 
arrayed nations numbering 322,000,000 with- 
out counting the teeming millions of British 
India. But on the other hand the armies 
of the Teutonic Allies on the day of mobiliza- 
tion numbered 8,500,000 all lavishly equipped 
and drilled to the highest efficiency and were 
confronted by 5,400,000 men of whom only 
the little British standing army of 125,000 
men, the French standing army and the 
First Reserve totaling 1,500,000 men, and 
perhaps an equal number of Russians were at 
all equipped for war. The Serbians and Bel- 
gians added about 500,000 to these forces. 
It is a reasonable estimate to say that in 
trained forces Germany took the field not 
less than twice as strong as her adversaries. 
But their numerical superiority was insig- 
nificant in comparison with their other ad- 
vantages. In all history there has been no 
army like the German army of 1914 — and 
if the world is" to live in peace there must 
never be another. Drilled to a razor-edge; 
equipped to the last button on every sol- 
dier's uniform; animated by a fanatical 
devotion to Kaiser, Fatherland and the 
cause; unfaltering in their confidence in 
victory; led by officers who had been 
trained to arms and command from infancy, 

*By 1017 Turkey and Bulgaria were added to the Teutonic 
Alliance, while the Entente Allies were reeniorced by the 
United States, Brazil, Italy, Argentina, Cuba, Greece, Por- 
tugal, China, Roumania, Siam, and Montenegro. 



the great armies of Wilhelm II challenged ad- 
miration and compelled fear. They were 
under a single command — an incalculable 
advantage in military operations. No Con- 
gress, House of Deputies or Parliament had 
a word to say about their campaigns or 
strategy. Geographically they had the ad- 
vantage of operating on interior lines, ena- 
bling them to shift large bodies of troops from 
one point to another more menaced with a 
rapidity which the Allies could not hope to 
equal. Their territory shut off" the Russians 
from their western allies, and later blocked 
Italy from ready communication with both. 
Above all they had such advantage in the 
way of accumulated munitions of war and 
new and unsuspected types of arms as the 
world had never dreamed of. For half a 
century the great firm of Krupps had been 
making and storing away this provender for 
the day of Armageddon. It has proved in- 
exhaustible. While every other army has 
now and then suffered reverses for lack of 
ammunition — the Russians being often out 
of the war for months for this cause — the 
Germans have never interrupted their steady 
consumption of all munitions, nor even given 
sign of any stringency impending. 

Great Britain, which like the United States 
has always been jealous of a standing army, 
had but 150,000 veterans ready for service 
when war befell. "A contemptible little 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



13 



army" the Kaiser called it. Von Kluck 
when he heard of the landing of the Hist 
detachment laughed a prodigious laugh, and 
calling up the Chief of Police of Berlin asked 
him to send down a squad of patrolmen "to 
arrest the British army ! " But no better body 
of fighting men was ever gathered together. 
They had fought in every clime and at every 
altitude; they had done battle with fot» ot 
every shade from the jet-black followers of 
the Mahdi to brown Afghans and the yellow 
Chinese. They were hastily thrown into 
the breach in France while Kitchener under- 
took to raise an army adequate to engage 
in a world war. In this service they died — 
almost every man of them — but they left a 
noble record for gallantry and stubborn fight- 
ing. The British with characteristic humor 
caught up the Kaiser's scornful words and 
made of them a phrase of highest compliment. 
A man who had been one of "the old con- 
temptibles" was a hero to the end of his 
days. 

We shall tell later of the German advance 
into Belgium and France which filled those 
countries with death and woe, and racked 
the world with apprehension lest the Huns 
should in fact get into Paris. For the mo- 
ment let us consider what Great Britain did 



to prepare for the great conflict upon which 
it was entering. France had 3,500,000 men 
in the field or preparing for it. Great Britain 
could not do less. 

Lord Kitchener, the victor of Khartoum, 
was called to the Ministry of War, and began 
his work by announcing that the war would 
last not less than three years. Men scoffed. 
How could Germany hold out so long against 
so many? Kitchener went his way. In 
eight months he had raised and equipped 
750,000 men. The Germans called them 
"Kitchener's mob," but like the "Old Con- 
temptibles'' its members were held in highest 
honor. The formation of this army bore 
the most convincing testimony to the unity 
of the British colonies under the Empire. 
All volunteers, troops came from Canada, 
Australia, New Zealand, India and the 
African colonies. The Empire which Ger- 
many had believed would crack to pieces at 
the first sign of trouble was cemented into 
an indestructible whole by England's first 
cry for aid. And the mother country's 
children who had left her almost a centurv 
and a half earlier, were not slow in coming 
forward. Young Americans, eager to fight 
for civilization and democracy, made haste 
to join the British ranks. As their home 




.. . ' ' - ■■ - d 

Underwood & Underwood 
The late Emperor Francis Joseph followed by the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, whose assassination at Sarajevo lighted the great 

European conflagration 



H 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Emperor William II of Ge many, whose periodically expressed principle of the divine right of kings seems 

to be accepted by the German people 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



IS 



by 



government frowned on the practice they 
always registered as Canadians, often giving 
as their local habitations such well known 
provinces of the dominion as Kentucky, 
Texas, or Oklahoma. 

Kitchener's army was raised entirely 
volunteer enlist- 
ment. But Great 
Britain soon learned, 
as we were destined 
to learn three years 
later, that this 
method of raising 
large forces was in- 
adequateand unjust. 
It skimmed the 
country of the cream 
of its citizenry. 
Those in whom 
patriotism and ide- 
alism beat highest 
were ready enough 
to volunteer. What 
we have called, often 
scoffingly, the Brit- 
ish aristocracy, or 
the leisure class, 
responded almost to 
a man. The intel- 
lectual element was 
quick to don khaki. 
Novelists, poets and 
essayists flocked to 
the trenches. But 
there was lethargy 
among the working 
classes, the clerks 
and the small trades- 
men. By the time 
half- a -million men 
had been raised 
clear-sighted public 
men perceived that 
the safety of the 
nation would compel 
conscription. But 
this system was 
hated in Great Brit- 
ain, even as in the 
United States, and 
for as little reason. 

It was bitterly opposed by the labor unions, 
which are more powerful there than with us, 
who complained that war called the working- 
man to fight while the capitalists reaped 
swollen profits — a fact not wholly to be 



gainsaid, although up to the time conscrip- 
tion was called for the wealthv class in Great 
Britain had contributed far more than its 
share of personal service to the war. More 
influential was the plea that conscription 
would develop in England a spirit of militar- 




Z 

mm 

////Mff^fi,. 

7//71TMIIIIIIIIMIII 



^SWITZERL 



AND, 

I II 1 1 Til J 



This map shows approximately the extent of the German advance to Sept. 6, 1914. The 
heavy lines with arrow tips show the general movement of the German advance; the heavy dotted 
lines, routes of parallel, but lesser columns. All territory between the line touching Antwerp, 
Ghent, Bruges and Amiens and the main line was filled with German troops. Raiding parties 
also reached Ostend and Boulogne 

; sm such as had long burdened the Continent 
and which might not give way after the war. 
But in the end, despite a remarkable spurt 
of volunteering on a plan devised by Lord 
Derby, conscription was put into effect. By 



i6 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




© Underwood & Underwood 

Ammunition supply fur the Belgian Artillery which drove the Germans to make a 
hasty retreat after vainly trying to break the line 



that method Great Britain was enabled to 
put into the field 4,000,000 men by the 
middle of 1916, and to maintain her armies 
to their full quota thereafter throughout the 
war. 

It was August 4, 1914, that the German 
Army of the Meuse opened the war by cross- 
ing the Belgian frontier and at once coming 
into conflict with the Belgian forces. 

The Army of the Meuse was made up of 




1 Underwood S; Underwood 
Belgian Infantry on their w.iy to reinforce the troops at Liege 



the very flower of the Ger- 
man army, for to it was as- 
signed the task which was ex- 
pected to be the most glorious 
and the most spectacular, and, 
proving to be both of those, 
was the most arduous as well. 
Upon it the eyes of the civil- 
ized world were riveted for 
weeks. Against it fought 
Belgians, British, and French 
from the very outset of its 
operations, and before it 
merged its identity in the 
general German line it had 
withstood the assaults of 
infantry, cavalry, and artillery 
— and all with hardly a stop 
for food or sleep. It had met 
and fought Turcos from 
French Africa, and Sikhs and 
Hindoos from British East 
India. Commanded by Gen- 
eral von Emmerich, it numbered at its en- 
trance upon Belgian soil about 200,000 men, 
which number, oft depleted by heavy fighting, 
was continually reenforced until it approached 
the impressive total of a half million armed 
men. 

No army of all history ever took the field 
so splendidly equipped with new and terrible 
engines of war as the armies of Germany, 
and particularly the Army of the Meuse in 
this campaign. Aeroplanes 
and dingib'es spied out the 
way, reported the positions of 
the enemy, and indicated to 
the artillery the range. Motor 
cars carried soldiers swiftly 
from point to point and 
hurried light guns into action; 
heavily armored, they had 
their place on the line of 
battle, and marked with the 
Red Cross they carried the 
wounded to places of safety. 
1 hey propelled field kitch- 
ens which rumbled along 
beside the marching columns 
and served the men with meals 
without interrupting their 
advance. Rapid-fire guns 
poured out streams of bullets 
like water from a hose, and 
were so compactly built that 
one could be packed on a 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



17 



horse, or carried on two motor cycles. Siege 
guns with a range of ten miles, of a calibre 
and weight never before thought capable of 
passage along country roads, were dragged 
by traction engines or by their own motors 
at a rate of eight miles an hour — guns that 
twenty years ago would have been useless 
in any field because of their immobility. By 
the use of flat platforms on the circumference 
of their wheels — "caterpillar wheels" they 
called them — these cannon could be dragged 



Belgian resistance held them up just suffi- 
ciently to enable France to shift her troops 
to the threatened frontier, and while the im- 
portance of the Belgian battles was at the 
time greatly overestimated, they did in 
fact break down the whole German pro- 
gramme, and perhaps cost Germany the war 
in its first fortnight. 

The plan of campaign which the German 
military staff — as busy 
almost in time of 




Belgian sharpshooters guarding Antwerp against German invasion. Here behind great water pipes they rind a safe barricade 
from which to pick off daring Germans in advance of the rear columns 



by motors even over plowed fields. They 
throw an armor-piercing shot weighing 800 
pounds, and at seven miles will demolish a 
target of a few feet square. It was their 
deadly accuracy that beat down Belgian 
resistance at Liege and Namur. 

Almost forty-four years before to the day 
and hour the German troops had crossed 
into France at the beginning of the Franco- 
Prussian war which ended in such sweeping 
victory. The coincidence seemed a bright 
omen of victory and the German troops swept 
on into their enemy's country singing 
"Deutschland ueber Alles," and shouting their 
s'ogan of "Paris in three weeks. London in 
three months." But they were destined to 
find this a war of a very different sort. 1 he 



peace as in time of war — had prepared con- 
templated the invasion of France from three 
points by three armies: 

The Army of the Meuse, with its base at 
Aix-la-Chapelle was to enter Belgium, re- 
duce the forts at Liege, and march on Paris 
by a westerly route, taking in passing the 
forts at Namur and at Lille. 

The Army of the Moselle, already concen- 
trated in Luxemburg, was to enter France at 
Longwv and proceed to Pans, subduing by 
the way the fortresses at Verdun and 
Rheims. 

The Army of the Rhine, the only one not 
making neutral territory a part of its path- 
way, was to have its base at Strassburg and 
cross the French frontier near Nancy. By 



18 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



this last route the Prussians thrice before 
had reached the French capital. 

At the outset the task of breasting the 
German tide fell chiefly upon France and 
Belgium. The Belgian army, of about ioo,- 
ooo men, which faced nothing but certain 
sacrifice, confronted the Germans on a line 
running north and east from Namur and pass- 
ing back of Liege. That fortress, one of the 
most powerful in Belgium, was expected to 
hold the foe in check until the French army 



vices for defense. But only twenty thousand 
Belgian troops manned these forts, or de- 
fended the gaps between them. Two hun- 
dred thousand Germans demanded that the 
way be opened. Worse than all, the equip- 
ment of the forts had not been kept up to 
date and their armament was entirely inade- 
quate for their defense. In fact, the first and 
largest fort, Fleron, was practically silenced 
by the field guns of the Germans, who had not 
yet had time to bring up their heavy siege 




!c) International News Service 
German infantry passing through the Belgian capital (Brussels) on their triumphant march to the French frontier 



and perhaps a detachment of British might 
come to the Belgian relief. 

It was looked upon as a fortified point of 
prodigious strength. Its fortresses were of the 
type which military science up to that time 
had fixed upon as approaching the impreg- 
nable. They were wrought steel turrets, 
curved so as to offer the poorest possible tar- 
get for shells, looking like great black mush- 
rooms, squatting close to the ground with a 
ditch surrounding each and a broad cleared 
space on every side. Underground passages 
connected the nine turrets, and there was the 
usual provision of mines, ditches, electrified 
barbed-wire entanglements, and other de- 



guns, which afterward proved the sensation 
of the first weeks of the war. The fall of 
this, the most powerful of the Belgian works, 
opened a gap in the defenses of Liege, which 
was held with unprecedented gallantry for 
forty-eight hours by a comparatively few 
men, the greater part of whom were little 
better than civilians in training. During this 
period the Germans brought up their big 
howitzers, smashed two supporting fortresses, 
and opened the way to the city to the German 
advance. 

With the Liege forts silenced or left in the 
rear the army of von Kluck entered the city, 
made it a base and pressed on into Belgium. 



, 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



19 



hough several forts were still in Belgian 
possession, notably Fort Loncin where Gen. 
Leman established himself, defending it 
until the work was literally battered to pieces 
and its commander left for dead in the ruins, 
nothing was permitted to delay further 
the German advance. The six days already 
lost were precious. The forces of France 
were hastening toward the breach, and the 
handful of British troops regarded so con- 



that stirred the world with horror, and added 
greatly to the hostile sentiment which the 
unwarrantable invasion of Belgium by Ger- 
many had already created in neutral countries. 
The action of the authorities of Brussels 
in offering no resistance to the incoming 
Germans was dictated by consideration of 
the methods of revenge and terrorism adopted 
by the Germans in their march through 
Belgium. War has never been more remorse- 




& 



temptuously by the Germans were on French 
soil and hurrying to the front. King Albert, 
seeing the odds against his little army grow- 
ing daily more desperate, and recognizing 
that men, not territory, would determine the 
outcome of the war, steadily withdrew before 
the advancing enemy. Brussels, the capital, 
was abandoned without defense, and the 
King and his army retired first to Antwerp 
and later to the far southwestern corner of 
Belgium in the neighborhood of Ostend 
where it has since maintained itself. It was 
during this period of the German advance 
through Belgium that there occurred the 
series of savage reprisals and persecutions 



Refugees from the outlying villages fleeing to Brussels for 
protection against the advancing German army 

less. In every town and village prominent 
men were seized as hostages and were re- 
lentlessly put to death if any citizen, mad- 
dened by the destruction of his property or 
insults offered to his womenkind, dared to 
attack the aggressors. The story of German 
atrocities in Belgium is not to be told here. 
It formed the subject of heated, diplomatic 
discussion in all the countries involved. It 
was investigated by a distinguished com- 
mission, headed by Viscount James Bryce, 
whose name alone carries conviction of intel- 
lectual honesty to all informed readers. In 
every war men lose in some degree the 
semblance of humanity and cast off the 



20 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Belgians entraining for the front at Brussels 



veneer of civilization. It is impossible, how- 
ever, to read both sides of the discussion of 
German methods during the first weeks of 
the invasion of Belgium without being con- 
vinced that the extreme seventy, approach- 
ing barbarism, was both definitely ordered 
and systematically encouraged by the Ger- 
man commanders in pursuance of the "policy 
of frightfulness," and with the purpose of 
overawing at the very outset a population 
which they knew they would hold in military 
subjection during the period of the war, and 
hoped to retain as vassals thereafter. 

Most shocking to the sentiment of the 
world was the almost complete destruction 
of the quaintest and most picturesque part 
of Louvain, a Belgian town richly stored with 
treasures of Gothic art and architecture 
dating from the period of the Middle Ages. 
This town was destroyed by the Germans 
systematically, with military precision, by 
soldiers who went from street to street filling 
the first stories of the buildings with com- 
bustibles and then applying the torch. The 
excuse given by General von Lutwitz, in 
command, was that a shot fired by the 
burgomaster's son killed a high German officer 
and seemed to serve as a signal for snipers in 
the windows and on roofs. An objection to this 
story is that the burgomaster had no son. The 
destruction of Louvain, coming in the very first 
week of the war, was fought over as bitterly in 



the organs of public opinion as it has been in 
the streets of the town. Whatever the ex- 
cuse — and, concerning that, doubt will never 
be settled — the destruction was complete. 
A most graphic description of it was written 
by Richard Harding Davis, the well-known 
American author, who was held prisoner in 
a railroad car in Louvain by German soldiers 
while the town was burning: 

When by troop train we reached Louvain, the entire 
heart of the city was destroyed and fire had reached 
the Boulevard Tirlemont, which faces the railroad 
station. The night was windless and the sparks rose 
in steady, leisurely pillars, falling back into the furnace 
from which they sprang. 

In their work of destruction the soldiers were moving 
from the heart of the city to its outskirts, street by 
street, from house to house. 

In each building, so German soldiers told me, they 
began at the first floor, and when that was burning 
steadily passed to the one next. There were no excep- 
tions — whether it was a store, chapel, or private resi- 
dence, it was destroyed. The occupants had been 
warned to go, and in each deserted shop or house the 
furniture was piled, the torch was stuck under it, and 
into the air went the savings of years, souvenirs of 
children, of parents, heirlooms that had passed from 
generation to generation. 

The people had time only to fill a pillow-case and fly. 
Some were not so fortunate, and by thousands, like 
flocks of sheep, they were rounded up and marched 
through the night to concentration camps. We were 
not allowed to speak to any citizen of Louvain, but the 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



21 



Germans crowded the windows, boastful, gloating, eager 
to interpret. 

On the high ground rose the broken spires of the 
Church of St. Pierre and the Hotel de Ville, and descend- 
ing like steps were row beneath row of houses, roofless, 
with windows like blind eyes. The fire had reached 
the last row of houses, those on the Boulevard de 
Jodigne. Some of these were already cold, but others 
sent up steady, straight columns of flame. In others 
at the third and fourth stories the window curtains still 
hung, flowers still tilled window boxes, while on the 
first floor the torch had just passed and the flames were 
leaping. Fire had destroyed the electric plant, but at 
times the flames made the station so light that you 
could see the second hand of your watch and again all 
was darkness, lit only by candles. 

You could tell when an officer passed bv the electric 
torch he carried strapped to his chest. In the darkness 
the gray uniforms filled the station with an army of 
ghosts. You distinguished men only when pipes 
hanging from their teeth glowed red or their bayonets 
flashed. 

Outside the station in the public square the people 
of Louvain passed in an unending procession, women 
bareheaded, weeping, men carrying the children asleep 
on their shoulders, all hemmed in by the shadowy army 
of gray wolves. Once they were halted, and among 
them were marched a line of men. They well knew 
their fellow-townsmen. These were on the way to be 
shot. And better to point the moral an officer halted 
both processions and, climbing to a cart, explained 
why the men were to die. He warned others not to 
bringdown upon themselves a like vengeance. 

As those being led to spend the night in the fields 
looked across to those marked for death they saw old 



friends, neighbors of long standing, men of their own 
household. The officer bellowing at them from the 
cart was illuminated by the headlights of an automo- 
bile. He looked like an actor held m a spotlight on a 
darkened stage. 

It was all like a scene upon the stage, so unreal, so 
inhuman, you felt it could not be true; that the curtain 
of fire, purring and crackling and sending up sparks to 
meet the kind, calm stars, was only a painted back- 
drop; that the reports of rifles from the dark rooms 
came from blank cartridges; and that these trembling 
shopkeepers and peasants ringed in bayonets would 
not in a few minutes reallv die, but that they them- 
selves and their homes would be restored to their wives 
and children. 

I hursday, August iotli, the German forces 
proceeding through Belgium had massed in 
heavy numbers before Namur, where the 
Anglo-French forces awaited their attack. 
Namur lies at the junction of the Sambre and 
Meuse rivers. Its forts, which up to that 
time had been supposed to be impregnable, 
formed the whole support of the French right 
against the unexpectedly overpowering force 
of the Germans. The forces opposed to the 
German invasion, enumerated from the left 
ot the line, or its western end which rested 
at Mons, were as follows: The British con- 
tingent, numbering at the outset barely 70,000 
men under the command of Sir John French, 
extended to Charleroi, where it came into con- 
tact with the fifth French army of three corps 
amounting to perhaps 120,000 men, under 




Hell! 



n retu^ees on the wayside carrying with them a 



if their household things that chej hold most dear 



22 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




© Underwood & Underwood 
Belgians in ambush near Malines with their machine gun in position ready to mow down the advancing Uhlans 



General Joffre. This French line extended as 
far as the angle of the rivers at Namur, then 
bent sharply in an angle to the south where 
along the Meuse lay three more army corps 
amounting to another 120,000 men. In all at 
this moment there were about 400,000 men 
in this Allied army. 

Unsuspecting the marvelous efficiency of 
the German transportation neither of the 
Allies imagined that they would be attacked 
by more than 500,000 men at the utmost. 
While this was conceding a heavy superiority 
to the enemy, vet with the advantage of the 
Namur forts, the weakness of which none 







© Underwood & Underwood 
Preparing soup for the Belgian Infantry in Flanders; the men coming from th 
trenches for mid-day supplies with appetites sharpened in the keen air 



suspected, and with the protection of the 
two rivers the case did not seem hopeless. 
At the very worst the Allied commanders 
looked forward only to a slow retirement to 
permit the further reinforcements, which 
were coming from England and from other 
sections of France, a chance to reach the 
firing line. 

What happened was that the Namur forts 
gave way before the enemy's fire like so 
many paper boxes, and the German force, 
which had not been expected to reach four 
hundred thousand, was in fact seven hundred 
thousand. They had brought through Bel- 
gium five army corps, each 
with a separate division, under 
the command of General von 
Kluck, which confronted the 
two British corps under French. 
Four more, under Von Buelow, 
including the Emperor's own 
imperial guard, extended from 
Von Kluck's right to Namur, 
where the line was taken up 
by the third army under the 
Duke of Wiirtemburg number- 
ing five corps. The latter had 
reached the field of action by 
pressing through the difficult 
territory of the Forest of Ar- 
dennes through which the 
French authorities had no be- 
lief an army could move with 
anything like the celerity it 
attained. 

The effect of this overwhelm- 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



23 




. p 



to the gates of Paris conducted with the 
most admirable skill by General French 
and General Joffre, and maintained with 
heroic endurance and daring by both British 
and French soldiers. The unmilitary reader 
is apt to think of a retreat as only an igno- 
minious incident of war. So it is, if it is allowed 
to degenerate into a panic, but although the 



© Underwood & Underwood 

Belgian troops salvaging a German gun in the swamps 
round Termonde, left in their haste to retreat 

ing force was that not only were the British 
and French brigades confronted by superior 
forces in their immediate front, but the right 
of Von Kluck's army extended far beyond the 
left flank of Sir John French, while the left 
of the Duke of Wiirtemburg'sarmy likewise 
extended beyond the right flank of the fourth 
French army. Thus the force striving to 
hold the invaders back from French soil was 
in imminent danger of being flanked at 
either end, surrounded, and annihilated. 

Had that happened nothing could have circumstances attendant upon the beginning 
saved France. Cities, even capitals, may be of this retirement gave every excuse for rout, 
lost by a nation without the 
loss of the war if its armies 
are still left in the field to con- 
tinue the struggle. But with 
the army destroyed the nation 
itself falls. So we shall see 
later that at the moment when 
Paris itself seemed most in 
danger, the French govern- 
ment, notwithstanding the sen- 
timental affection which would 
seem to dictate the defense 
of its capital to the bitter end, 
nevertheless prepared for its 
abandonment and the concen- 
tration of every effort upon 
saving the army. At Namur 
both Allied armies were in the 
gravest peril from which they 

extricated themselves slowly © Underwood & Underwood 

and only by a retreat almost The ruins of a church at Barcy after its bombardment 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 




I he niins of Vassencourt on the 
M.nne after bombardment by ,. 

the heavy guns of the 
( iermans 

the generals and soldiers kept their heads and 
out of the discouragement of retreat plucked 
the laurels of victory on the banks of the 
Marne almost two weeks later. 

Saturday, the 21st of August, the Germans 
delivered so fierce an assault on the fourth 
and fifth armies that both fell back toward 
Mauberge. Through some error never ex- 
plained, and about which the British have 
ever since complained bitterly, news of this 
retirement was not sent to Sir John French 
until nearly twenty-four hours later. His 
troops were in fierce battle with those of 
Von Kluck and at the moment did not under- 
stand the overpowering dimensions of the 
force by which they were attacked. In the 
midst of this action word came to French 
that his allies were in full retreat, and that 
a gap was open between the end of his line 
and theirs into which the German army 
might well have poured, cut the continuity 
of the Allied lines, and destroyed their armies. 

On Sunday, August 22d, the British were 
holding their enemy in check outside the 
French frontier at Mons in Belgium. A 
week later thev were at La Fere, only eighty- 
five miles from Paris. At Rheims, whose 
famous Gothic cathedral became for weeks 
the favorite target for German guns, the 
French lost the town, 410 guns, and 12,000 
men, and all Germany went wild because 



that same city had fallen on precisely the 
same date forty-four years earlier. Later 
the French retook it. While the Army of the 
Meuse was thus pushing back both the 
British and the French, the Army of the 
Moselle, under Prince Rupprecht, broke 
through a French line of from five to eight 
army corps between Nancy and the Vosges, 
defeating them decisively. The Army of the 
Crown Prince, advancing through Luxem- 
burg, menaced Paris from that direction. 
Nothing seemed likely to intervene for the 
salvation of the trench capital, from which 
the government had fled to Bordeaux while 
the city itself was daily menaced by the 
flight over it of German aeroplanes. 

All Germany was wild with joy. Her 
troops had reduced fortresses that had been 
expected to hold out for weeks, and had done 
nothing but pursue flying forces of French 
and British which offered only the brief 
resistance of rearguard battles. "Sedan 
Day" approached — that glorious September 
1st on which, in 1870, Napoleon Third and 
the last great French army were trapped by 
Von Moltke on the battleground at Sedan, 
cut to pieces, and forced to surrender. Up 
and down the streets of Berlin now marched 
cheering mobs, crying for some great new 
triumph on this historic anniversary, while 
German officers, and it is said even the Em- 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



25 



)eror himself, gayly made appointments to 
elebrate it in Paris at the Cafe de la Paix. 
n part the enthusiasm of Berlin was justi- 
ed, for on that day came news of the over- 
vhelming victory of Von Hindenburg over 
he Russians at Tannenberg in East Prus- 
ia — a victory which for more than a year 
leld that section of Germany free from in- 
/asion. 

But in France Sedan Day marked the be- 
ginning of the end of German triumph. It 
was almost the critical moment which de- 
ermined the result of the war. For on that 
lay the German advance was halted so near 
o Paris that the city's church bells could 
ae heard during the lulls in the clatter of 
the fire along the opposing lines. 

While the soldiers in the German ranks 
might laugh and cheer as they contemplated 
this rapid rush upon Paris, their generals 
knew only too well that every day was making 
their situation more difficult. To begin 
with the Allied forces were steadily growing. 
Guarded by the great gray battleships and 
the restless destroyers of the British navy the 
transports of the British army were slipping 
ack and forth across the Channel bringing 
troops by the tens of thousands to the reen- 



forcement of Sir John French. At Namur 
the British line had been estimated at about 
seventy thousand. When the Germans were 
halted near Senlis it numbered not less than 
150,000. At Namur, again, the French 
forces were estimated at about 240,000 men. 
When the check was imposed on Von Kluck 
and Von Buelow they had increased to the 
neighborhood of a million men. Moreover, 
the French brought into action at this point 
an entirely fresh army of nearly 500,000 men, 
which had been gathering under the eye of 
General Gallieni, commandant of Paris, 
for the express defense of the capital. 

Not only were the Allies stronger at the 
close of their retreat, but the Germans were 
weaker. Always during the pursuit the 
Germans had outnumbered their adversaries; 
now had come the time when they were to 
be outnumbered. The hostile territory of 
Belgium had to be garrisoned with troops 
withdrawn from the German fighting force. 
Probably more than 100,000 were thus taken 
from Von Kluck's army. More serious than 
this, however, had been the necessity for 
sending back to the east heavy detachments 
to meet the unexpectedly prompt and vigor- 
ous attack of the Russians in Gahcia and East 




The devastated city of Clermont, in the Argonne region. It was burned by the Germai 

ruined walls are all that remain 



at the Battle of the Marne. Roofless 



26 



THE NATIO 



Prussia. Not less than five army corps 
were thus disposed of. 

All the German armies had been steadily 
converging on Paris for days. Von Kluck 
on the right of the long line, the left of which 
was the pivot near Verdun had necessarily 
the longest way to march. He was in the 
position of the boy who is snapper in the 
game of snap of the whip. The rapidity of 
his march will long remain one of the marvels 
of military annals. Being far superior in 



NS AT WAR 

to the full strength of the Army of Paris, 
under Maunoury, and left that force on his 
flank while he swept toward the southeast in 
attack upon the British. 

It was at this moment that Sir John French 
failed of perhaps the greatest opportunity 
of the war. Von Kluck's swing to the south- 
east had put that wing of the German army 
fairly at the mercy of the Allies. On his 
right flank, with easv access to his rear were 
the troops of Maunoury. If Genera' Frenc!- 




German infantry awaiting orders to advance against the Allies just before the Battle of the Marne 



numbers to the British force which was 
directly in his front, he adopted the tactics of 
steadilv reaching out toward the west as though 
to envelop their left flank. This compelled 
the steady retirement of Sir John French's 
army until the Allied lines had almost reached 
the Seine, and victory seemed within the 
German grasp. But at this point the Army 
of Pans came into play and Von Kluck 
found that the left flank of Sir John French 
was no longer the flank of the whole Allied 
army. He had lost the advantage of num- 
bers, and while it was still possible for him 
to rush the Paris forts and take the city, it 
would have exposed him to being cut off from 
the main German army. But, resisting this 
temptation, he fell nevertheless into another 
trap. For he was not, apparently, posted as 



could keep the Germans engaged on his front, 
this general would attack on the flank, pass to 
the rear and cut off" both Von Kluck and Von 
Buelow, who adjoined him on the left, cutting 
them off from their communications, and the 
rest of the German army. It would have 
been a master stroke and might, indeed, 
have ended the war then and there. But an 
appeal from Joffre's headquarters for French 
to shift front and attack Von Kluck on Sep- 
tember 5th, was coldly received. The British 
general declared that his troops were fatigued 
with the long retreat and could not be made 
ready for an offensive in less than two days. 
While he was making ready Von Kluck 
withdrew the part of his force that confronted 
the British, duping the latter with the shal- 
lowest screen of cavalry. Maunoury at- 




The destruction of what was rep 



uted to be one of the most beautiful buildings in Europe, the cloth hall at Ypres 



28 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Defenders of Cerge resting during a lull in the fighting 



tacked alone. But his army was only one 
jaw of the nut cracker. Sir John French's 
was the other. The one jaw alone could not 
crack Von Kluck, who slipped out and 
began his retreat. So far as the battle of 
the Marne is concerned — the crucial battle 
of the war up to the present moment, 1918 — 
the British had virtually no share or part 
in it. 

Throughout ages to come the Battle of 
the Marne will stand as one of the decisive 
battles of history. It will rank with Mara- 
thon and Salamis, with Waterloo, Yorktown 
and Gettysburg. It saved Europe from the 
Hun, averted from the Western Hemisphere 
the heavy hand of Teutonic domination, 
gave to the Monroe Doctrine a new lease of 
life and beyond doubt rescued the United 
States from the desperate task of repelling 
a German invasion. Much about the strat- 
egy by which the action was won for the 
Allies is still involved in obscurity. After 
three years the veil of the censorship still 
obscures many pertinent facts. As a result 
there have sprung up two theories concerning 
the honor due for the victory — the honor, 
that is to say, under that supreme credit 
which rightfully belongs to General Joffre. 
Whether Maunoury's attack on Von Kluck's 
right with the unsuspected strength of the 



Army of Paris, or General Foch's successful 
drive against Hausen in the German center 
was the sword stroke of victory is already 
the subject of controversy, and as history 
comes to be written in increasing volume, 
and as records now jealously sequestered are 
given to the historical world, the debate 
will grow. 

The two great armies on the 2nd and 3rd 
of September confronted each other on a 
curved line, something like a long, flattened 
out S lying on its side and extending from 
Senlis, fourteen miles from Paris, to St. Die, 
200 miles east. The part of the line most 
involved in what has come to be called the 
Battle of the Marne extended from Nancy 
around Verdun and so eastward. The battle, 
in fact, opened on the far eastern flank, dis- 
tant from the Marne River, on the 31st of 
August when the Germans assaulted the 
French lines in the space between Verdun 
and Nancy to which the name "La Grande 
Courronne" was given. They met with 
a savage and unexpected resistance. But 
the issue was determined farther west. 

Inexplicably Von Kluck, on the right flank, 
thought he had nothing before him but Sir 
John French's army, weary and dispirited, 
after ten days' retreat. His swing southeast 
from Paris was for the purpose of enveloping 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




© Undenvoud Cc Underwood 
French Marines are welcomed by the residents of Ghent as they march through the street 



this army and cutting it off from the capital. 
Buelow and Hausen, farther toward the center, 
were to pierce the French front before them 
and swinging to the westward complete the en- 
velopment of French as well as the divisions 
of d'Esperey and Foch. It was a promising 
plan but based on insufficient knowledge of 
the enemy's forces. Hardly had Von Kluck 
begun his swing when Maunoury attacked 
his flank. Buelow and Hausen hurried 
troops over to meet this danger, thus weaken- 
ing their force too much to make an attack 
upon Foch safe. At this moment Joffre 
ordered Foch to take the offensive, attacking 
the weakened line of Hausen in his immediate 
front. The assault was immediately suc- 
cessful. The German line was pierced, and 
retreat became inevitable. This was on 
the 9th of September — the decisive day of 
the Battle of the Marne. 

With its center pierced the German army 
began its retreat on the following day. 

The forces engaged during the seven days' 
struggle exceeded 2,400,000, the Allies being 
credited with 1,500,000 men, the Germans 
with 900,000, though the superior ability 
of the latter to concentrate their forces at 
the point of attack nullified to some extent 
this discrepancy. More than in any prior 
struggle between the warring armies this 



battle was decided by superior strategy 
rather than by force of numbers, or more des- 
perate fighting on the one side or the other. 

By the nth of September the whole Ger- 
man army was in retreat from the ground it 
had won with such dash and daring, and the 
form of its retreat on the extreme right 
where Von Kluck commanded was very like 
a rout, with cannon and munitions of war 
abandoned, and whole regiments cut off and 
captured. Four days of hard fighting that 
followed turned the fortunes of war against 
the Germans, who had already exulted in the 
prospect of feasting on the fleshpots of Paris. 

In ultimate history it is not improbable 
that the fame of Von Kluck will rest quite as 
securely on his successful retreat from the 
Marne as upon his almost unopposed march 
upon Paris. Caught between the hammer 
and anvil, outnumbered, with the morale of 
his army sorely suffering by the sudden tran- 
sition from enthusiastic advance to precipitate 
retreat, he yet saved his army from the de- 
struction which for a time seemed imminent 
and brought it, bleeding and footsore, beaten 
and discouraged but still a fighting force, to 
the entrenchments prepared for it along the 
Hills of Champagne and the Ile-de-France. 
There the Battle of the Marne merged into 
the Battle of the Aisne. 




U 



a. c 



*4j a; 
03 15 



g 

01 



CHAPTER II 



BATTLE OF THE AISNE — THE GERMAN BLUNDER AT CALAIS — REACHING 
OUT ON THE COAST — THE OCCUPATION OF ANTWERP — A POPULACE IN 

FLIGHT GERMANS REACH THE SEA — HARD FIGHTING IN FLANDERS— 

THE FRENCH IN ALSACE-LORRAINE — CHRISTMAS IN THE TRENCHES 




w 



HAT is called 
the Battle of 
the Aisne 
described 



is 
as 



lasting twenty-two 
days, or from the 12th 
of September to Oc- 
tober 4, 1914. But the 
name of the battle and 
its duration are alike 
fixed arbitrarily. It 
was quite as much the 
Battle of the Somme or 
the Oise, for it raged 
along the banks of both 
of these rivers as well 
as in territory far re- 
moved from all three. 
As for duration it 
might almost be said 
to have continued for 
eighteen months or 
more for it merged in- 
sensibly into the fight- 
ing in Flanders, and the names of the prin- 
cipal towns and cities which occur in the 
story of the Battle of the Aisne were still in 
the day's news that told of the Allied drive 
in midsummer of 191 6. 

As a detached battle, therefore, the Battle 
of the Aisne was practically inconclusive. 
In a way its plan may be roughly determined 
by a study of the map on page 36. This 
shows the line of the two belligerents con- 
fronting each other and extending across 
France to the southeast with Rheims at the 
centre. The Germans once across the Aisne 
and on the heights back of Rheims had speed- 
ily dug themselves in and made their position 
what may properly be called impregnable, as 
despite continuous fighting they still main- 
tained themselves in that position as late as 
August, 1916. All along this line the fighting 
was constant. The Franco-British attack 



took the form of the extension of their lines 
to the northwest in the direction of Ostend. 
In time it became a race for the coast. At 
this time the Allies outnumbered the Germans 
heavily. When Generals Joffre and French 
found on September 12th that they were 
no longer pursuing a retreating army, but 
face to face with the Germans, halted and 
awaiting attack behind heavy intrenchments, 
they recognized the necessity for a change in 
tactics from any further direct frontal attack. 
The first task was to get the troops across 
the Aisne. This was done by both British 
and French on pontoon bridges, constructed 
under heavy fire, and in his report General 
French compliments one regiment for having 
crossed the river "in single file under consider- 
able shell fire, by means of a broken girder 
of a bridge which was not entirely sub- 
merged." When beyond the river, the Allied 
forces found themselves on a level plain, 
rising gently as it receded from the river to 
a line of hills, the crests of which were 
crowned by German artillery on prepared 
emplacements, while on the rising slopes 
were lines of German rifle pits. Twice the 
Germans poured out of their trenches and 
in solid columns late at night rushed on the 
French and English in vain efforts to dis- 
lodge them from the foothold they had won. 
There was fighting for weeks back and forth 
over the Plateau of Craonne. Now the 
charging line sung the "Marseillaise," or 
"Tipperary, " and then the German cries for 
Deutschland rung out over the same blood- 
stained plain. 

The neighboring villages were held first 
by one army and then by the other, and in- 
deed sometimes by both at once, each occu- 
pying a section of the town so that neither 
belligerent dared use its artillery for fear of 
killing its own men. 

Rheims was held in turn by both enemies 
and finally bombarded by the Germans with 



3i 



32 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Namur looking down upon the tow 



results that shocked the art-loving world— 
but of that more hereafter. A condition of 
war which afterward became commonplace 
enough, but which at the time seemed to all 



fortifications 



the world unprece- 
dented for its cold- 
blooded brutality, 
shocked the Amer- 
ican journalist, Irvin 
S. Cobb, into writ- 
ing this ghastly de- 
scription: 

As I recall now we 
had come through the 
gate of the schoolhouse 
to where the automobiles 
stood when a putt of 
wind, blowing to us from 
the left, which meant 
from across the battle- 
front, brought to our 
noses a certain smell 
which we all knew full 



" You get it, I see," 
said the German officer 
who stood alongside me. " It comes from three miles off, 
but you can get it five miles distant when the wind is 
strong. That" — and he waved his left arm toward it 
as though the stench had been a visible thing — "that 




French artillery in action during Von Kluck's great drive on Paris, which did wonderful work in holding their ground to thi 
last possible moment, then retreating and taking up another defensive position 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



33 



explains why tobacco is 
so scarce with us among 
the staff back yonder in 
Laon. All the tobacco 
which can be spared is 
sent to the men in the 
front trenches. As long 
as they smoke and keep 
on smoking they can 
stand — that! 

" You see," he went 
on painstakingly, " the 
situation out there at 
Cerny is like this: The 
French and English, 
but mainly the English, 
held the ground first. 
We drove them back and 
they lost very heavily. 
In places their trenches 
were actually full of 
dead and dying men 
when we took those 
trenches. 

" At once they rallied and forced us back, and now 
it was our turn to lose heavily. That was nearly three 
weeks ago, and since then the ground over which we 
fought has been debatable ground, lying between our 
lines and the enemy's lines — a stretch four miles long 




Th< 



Kaiser with the Crown Prince and his fifth son Prince Oskar, who is doing active service as a 
captain in the army, before the imperial headquarters in France 

and half a mile wide that is literally carpeted with 
bodies of dead men. They weren't all dead at first. 
For two days and nights our men in the earthworks 
heard the cries of those who still lived, and the sound 
of them almost drove them mad. There was no reach- 




A cyclists' company of a German battalion of riflemen. These men are chiefly used for reconnoitring 



34 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




A ruined Liege fort . The steel turret overthrown and masonry demolished by the fire from the German heavy siege guns 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



35 



ing the wounded, though, 
either from our lines or 
from the Allies' lines. 
Those who tried to reach 
them were themselves 
killed. Now there are 
only dead out there — 
thousands of dead, I 
think. And they have 
been there twenty days. 
Once in a while a shell 
strikes that old sugar mill 
or falls into one of those 
trenches. Then — well, 
then, it is worse for those 
who serve in the front 
line." 

" But in the name of 
God, man," I said, "why 
don't they call a truce 
— both sides — and put that horror underground?" 

He shrugged his shoulders. 

"War is different now," he said. "Truces are not 
the fashion.' " 

Virtually all the operations, conducted by 
either belligerent 
which we sum up 
under the name of 
the Battle of the 
Aisne resulted in 
failure. In their 
long prepared 
trenches back ot 
the Aisne, built as 
though they had 
foreseen the defeat 
at the Marne, the 
Germans bade the 
French defiance 
and even assumed 
the offensive now 
and then, beating 
back theirenemies 
from their more 
advanced posi- 
tions. Had they 
indeed anticipat- 
ed their present 
situation? After 
Pans had been 
snatched from 
their grasp the 
German general 
staff declared that 
they had never 
contemplated the 




A family flight in Belgium to safety. Dogcarts being used 
as shown here in many cases helped the populace tu escape 
from the on-pressing Germans 




capture of the 



A bridge over the Scheldt River over which the army and many refugees 
escaped from Antwerp 



hunch capital. The 
French army and not 
the city was their ob- 
jective, unless Gen- 
eral Joffre should re- 
peat the error of 
Bazaine at Metz and 
coop his army up in 
the city to be taken 
with it. This was 
sound enough strat- 
egy on the German 
part, but was never 
heard of until after 
the disaster on the 
Marne. Prior to 
that all was boasting 
prophecy of "Paris 
in three weeks." The officers, from the 
Crown Prince down were making dinner ap- 
pointments at the Cafe de la Paix. It is 
indeed an historic fact that the unpleasant 
intelligence of Maunoury's appearance on his 

flank was brought 
to \ on Kluck at a 
moment when 
that worthy was 
celebrating his 
next day's en- 
trance upon Paris 
with rather more 
champagne than 
was wise for a gen- 
eral in the midst 
of war's alarms. 
It has been sug- 
gested that the 
influence upon 
their movements 
of the huge stores 
of champagne the 
Germans found 
ready for their en- 
joyment would 
make a not im- 
pertinent chapter 
of history. 

Whether the 
Germans did or 
did not anticipate 
the reverse at the 
Marne the fact 
remains that they 
soon began to 
claim their seem- 
ingly impregnable 



36 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 






.-*'! 






■) 


V 










\ • 










>s 










lift..,^ 




' - r 


' k'.\ - 




"*l 










"1 










II 






l >>' 


1 











¥ i 




< 

a 



■^sts 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



37 



position on the Aisne as their marker of vic- 
tory. There they sat month after month 
guarding the thousands of square miles of 
France and Belgium they had subjugated. 
Until driven back to their own territory they 
could justly claim victory, for they had kept 
the horrors of war from the Fatherland while 
inflicting them in plenty on the enemy's coun- 
try. They held subject great sections of 
France including its richest coal and iron dis- 
tricts. They were presently to sweep over 
that part of Belgium which they had not yet 



the question whether, in the initial dash into 
France, it would not have been wiser for 
the Germans to have seized Calais before 
making their advance upon Pans. Military 
opinion finally became general that a great 
opportunity was lost when Von Kluck's 
divisions, well within fifty miles of Calais 
in the first days of September, turned south 
and swept down upon the French capital. 
Dunkirk and Boulogne could have been taken 
at that moment with the greater port. The 
German forces were ample for the task. 




Crowds watching the arrival of the first of the valiant Belgian troops retreating into Antwerp before the overwhelming hordes of 

Germans 



conquered, and were to leave to King Albert 
only a few pitiful square miles of water- 
logged territory in the southwestern corner. 
It was small wonder that the German people 
believed in October, 1914, the assurances that 
the war was as good as won, though the 
Kaiser was responding to Ambassador Ge- 
rard's words of diplomatic compliment with 
the dolorous refrain, "No, no. The English 
are a stubborn people and it will be a long 
war." 

Criticism of German strategy, arising as 
the war progressed, has centered largely upon 



Deprived of these ports at the narrowest 
point of the English Channel the British 
task of ferrying millions of armed men and 
billions of tons of food and munitions to 
France would have been immeasurably in- 
creased, while the German air raids upon 
English territory and submarine attacks upon 
the shipping of the world — neutral as well as 
belligerent — would have been made easier 
and more effective. 

But that opportunity was neglected, and 
now, after the main bodies of the two great 
belligerent armies had settled down to the 



38 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




The late Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria-Hungary whose long rule was broken by numerous domestic 
troubles. They included the assassination of his wife and the suicide of his son.' His reign covered a period 
of almost seventy years, which ended leaving his people engulfed in one of the greatest disasters in history 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



39 



trenches on the Aisne, their two opposing 
wings to the westward reached out further 
and further in the effort to flank or avoid 
being flanked so that in the end it amounted 
to a race for the coast which was finally 
reached, but far to the north of Calais. 




inic-stricken mobs escaping from Antwerp. The congestion wa> terrific around the end of the bridge 
that furnished the only means of escape from the beleaguered Antwerp 



It was about the 20th of September that 
Joffre became alive to the fact that the Ger- 
man line of trenches from Verdun to Noyon 
was for the time impregnable. England and 
the United States had not then begun the 
manufacture of munitions on a colossal scale, 
and without shells and high explosives the 



bodies could not be blasted out of their 
trenches. Not only did they beat back all 
I' rench and British assaults, but the defenders 
assumed the offensive in their turn around 
Rheims, at Verdun and in the Argonne. 
But their gains were inconsiderable and it 

soon became 

apparent that 
the enemies 
were deadlock- 
ed. Then began 
the flanking 
movement. 
The German 
right rested on 
the O i s e . 
Around this end 
Joffre sent his 
troops, mostly 
French drawn 
from the far 
right of the Al- 
lied lines. The 
quaint little 
town of St. 
Quentin, which 
happened to be 
a railroad cen- 
ter of decided 
importance to 
the Germans, 
was the first ob- 
jective. In De- 
cember, 1917, it 
was still an ob- 
jective with the 
German lines 
drawn defiantly 
before it and 
the town blotted 
out. 

To accom- 
plish hisflanking 
movement Jof- 
fre transferred 
troops from the 
far eastern end 
of his lines, 
about Nancy, 
where there had been savage but inconclusive 
fighting between Castlenau and the Crown 
Prince and General von Heenngen. To meet 
it the Germans withdrew their troops from 
the same points. The lines which at the west 
had ended at Noyon, on the River Oise, 
now took a sharp turn to the northward. 



4° 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



The Germans slipped between the Allies and 
St. Quentin. Peronne and Cambrai they cut 
off — and three years later the forces of France 
and England were still fighting for those 
strategical points, but with a new flag, the 
Stars and Stripes, and a new force, the soldiers 
of the United States, fighting beside them. 

As this northward extension proceeded the 
Germans awoke to the fact that it threatened 
three results most unfavorable to their 
course. Unless checked, or at least turned 
sharply to the west it would cut the Ger- 
mans off from the sea coast altogether. 
Secondly it might reach Antwerp, still held 
by the Belgian troops, and finally bar the 
Germans from the occupation of that city; 
and third it would result in the juncture of 
Joffre's army with King Albert's from which 
in the last days of September it was separated 
only by about fifty miles. The first two 
eventualities the Germans averted by hard 
marching and harder fighting; the last came 
to pass but only after King Albert's army had 



been badly cut up in a futile effort to save 
Antwerp. 

It will be remembered that in the fierce 
eagerness of the Germans to reach France 
they swept by Antwerp without stopping to 
take it. Now, balked of their prize, Paris, 
and driven back, their attention was turned 
again toward this considerable seaport, the 
strategic position of which is such that 
Napoleon once said of it, "Antwerp is a 
pistol aimed at England's heart." 

Now the extension of the German line to 
meet Sir John French's flanking movement 
impelled Von Kluck to undertake the capture 
of the city. It was a constant menace in 
Belgian hands to his flank and rear. As a 
fortress it was second only to Paris. Its 
harbor, the River Scheldt, opened to the 
sea. Holland controlled the river's mouth 
so that only respect for the neutrality of 
that nation — to which the Germans could 
hardly appeal after their treatment of Bel- 
gium — stood in the way of Antwerp's being 




A patrol of French lancers starting out for patrol along the Aisne 



© Underwood & Underwood 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




The havoc wrought by artillery fire to a road in Ypres. As the 

continually supplied with fresh troops and 
munitions of war by the British. Moreover, 
it required 150,000 troops to invest it, and 
these men Von Kluck needed sorely on his 
battle line. They could only be relieved by 
making Antwerp a German possession, and 
accordingly on the 29th of September, while 
the Battle of the Aisne was being fought bit- 
terly all the way from Verdun to Arras, the 
attack was made. 

Antwerp was surrounded by a ring of forts 
at a distance of about twelve miles from the 
city. They were of the sort deemed im- 
pregnable before this war, but withstood the 
fire of the great German guns called " Busy 
Berthas," after the daughter of Herr Krupp, 
only three days. It would have been wise 
had the authorities of Antwerp, when the 
first fort fell, imitated the prudent course of 
the burgomaster of Brussels and made prompt 
surrender to the German invaders. For there 
was no adequate force present to defend the 
city. The Belgian army had already been 
so bady cut to pieces that a scant twenty 
thousand garrisoned the town and its de- 
fenses. At the instance of Winston Churchill, 
the First Lord of the Admiralty, a foolish 
relief expedition of about 8,000 British 
marines and bluejackets was sent to the 
city, but about 2,000 were disabled by the 
enemy's fire and as many forced over the 



© Underwood & Underwood 
British advance they are rapidly clearing and repairing the road 

line into Holland, where in accordance with 
international law they were disarmed and 
interned for the period of the war. Indeed 
their mission proved more harmful than 
helpful, for they enraged the Germans and 
caused a bombardment of the city for which, 
but for their presence, there would have been 
no excuse. The bombardment, however, 
was conducted more as an object lesson than 
with intent to destroy. The artillerists 
avoided hitting historical edifices or great 
public buildings with such complete success 
as to entirely discredit the plea that in the 
case of the Cathedral at Rheims the destruc- 
tion had been due to accident. While the 
bombardment lasted about thirty-six hours 
it resulted only in the destruction of certain 
limited quarters n the town, and the loss 
of life was not serious. The panic, however, 
caused by it and by the rapid and successful 
capture or passage of the forts by the German 
storming parties was terrifying. 

It was almost the flight of a whole people. 
Probably 400,000 men, women and children 
joined in the mad rush for escape from 
horrors that they could only guess from the 
reports of Louvain, Vise, Termonde, and the 
German rush through Belgium. A usually 
stolid people, bovine as their own big-eyed 
cattle, fled like a mad herd of stampeded 
steers. But three roads were open to them — 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



43 



to Ghent, to Flushing and into Holland. 
Perhaps halt the fugitives sought safety by 
water, and everything that floated, from hast- 
ily constructed rafts up to great merchant 
steamers, were pressed into service, and 
crowded like a New York subway train in 
the rush hour. Against the press of boats 
making their way down the river one could 
no more make his way up than a canoe can 
ascend the Niagara rapids, while the high- 
ways, by which both the retiring Belgian 
army and the panic-stricken civilian popula- 



torn kid shoes plodded on witli the multi- 
tude. 

There was food for none. The countryside 
was swept clear of all provender. Here and 
there a turnip field was found, and swiftly 
every root was dragged up and eaten raw. 
Diamonds were offered at farm-houses for 
loaves of bread, only to be refused because 
there was none. A correspondent saw a rich 
fugitive exchange a $5,000 automobile for one 
meal for his family. 

Just at the end the Belgian troops which 




Belgian refugees by the thousands arriving in Holland 



tion were fleeing were packed like Fifth 
Avenue on a bright winter's afternoon. The 
pace was that of the slowest vehicle, and 
donkey carts, wheelbarrows and carts drawn 
by dogs blocked the way for the swiftest auto- 
mobiles which honked their horns fruitlessly 
as they crawled along laden with men on 
the footboards and clinging to the hoods. 
Sons carried bed-ridden parents in their 
arms. Nuns marched bravely herding be- 
fore them orphan children committed to 
their care. Men and women clung to the 
stirrup leathers of passing dragoons for help 
on the way. Fashionable women in fur 
coats slung sheets filled with their most 
prized property over their shoulders and in 



for hours had conducted their retreat through 
the city in good order, were thrown into panic. 
By some blunder the pontoon bridge, the 
sole means of crossing the Scheldt, was blown 
up. Thirty thousand soldiers were still in 
and about Antwerp and when these reached 
the river front and found their escape cut off 
they lost all semblance of discipline or order. 
Some commandeered the few vessels remain- 
ing in the river, and made their way across 
to safety. Others fled across the country to 
be captured by the enemy or driven across 
the line into Holland, there to be interned 
until the end of the war. 

The panic which drove the people of Ant- 
werp into unreasoning flight was foolish and 



44 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



without justifica- 
tion. Whatever the 
Germans may have 
done in smaller 
towns,their actions 
during their occu- 
pation of Antwerp, 
even upon their 
first entry into the 
city, were entirely 
within the rules of 
war. 

It was a marvel- 
ous army that 
marched through 
the old Belgian 
town. It was little 
scarred by conflict, 
for the prize had 
been taken at but 
slender cost. Bat- 
tery after battery 
of field artillery 
rumbled along the 
streets, and eye- 
witnesses report 
that although these guns had been in action 
for thirty-six hours the horses were groomed 




British troops passing through London streets on their way to the 

front 



as for a parade and 
the harness pol- 
ished till it shone 
again. Every regi- 
ment had its band. 
The cavalry was 
preceded by rum- 
bling kettle drums 
and blaring trum- 
pets, behind which 
followed the Uhlans 
with their forest of 
lances and flutter- 
ing flags, the cuir- 
assiers in helmets 
and breast plates 
of burnished steel, 
bluejackets from 
the ships which had 
not yet dared to 
take the sea, Ba- 
varians in dark 
blue, Saxons in pale 
blue, and Austrians 
in uniforms of silver 
gray made up the 
triumphal procession which poured through 
absolutely deserted streets. But leaving be- 




Siege guns in action under cover of the forest . Two heavy German mortars tiring on the French. The guns arc elevated at a 
high angle so that the heavy projectiles fall almost vertically on the enemy's forts 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



45 



hind this spectacular army the main body of 
the German troops pressed straight through 
Antwerp in pursuit of the thoroughly dis- 
couraged Belgian army. 

Of King Albert's troops there were hardly 

I more than 50,000 left. They had every 
reason to be discouraged, disorganized, and 
demoralized. Brussels, their capital, had 
fallen, their king and government had fled 
first to Antwerp, and were now fugitives along 
the road to Ostend. They had seen the 
speedy fall of their greatest fortresses, Liege 



hilly for the retention of the last bit of 
their native soil left to them. 

Soon after the fall of Antwerp the Ger- 
man forces reached the sea coast. Ostend, 
most joyous of seashore resorts in times of 
peace, was taken and the rattle of the ma- 
chine guns replaced that of the little balls 
in the countless roulette wheels with which 
its guests had long diverted themselves. 
Zeebrugge — the seaport of Bruges, connected 
with that city by a canal — was next to 
fall and the Germans became masters of 




© Underwood & Underwood 
A square of the ruined Arras which bears the marks of the heavy German bombardment this section was subject to. Gathered 
in one corner can be seen the Tommies listening to the military band 



and Namur. They knew of the obliteration 
of such beautiful and picturesque unfortified 
towns as Louvain, Termond, and Malines. 
They had been left to bear the burden of 
conflict practically alone, for the little aid 
rendered by the handful of British sent to 
their assistance had been more of an irrita- 
tion to their enemies than a help in time of 
need. 

Yet this disheartened army pulled itself 
together and on the banks of the sluggish 
Yser and amidst the network of canals in 
Flanders fought desperately and success- 



practically all of the Belgian coast. Imme- 
diately they began fitting these two ports 
to serve as submarine bases, for which they 
were not naturally well fitted because of the 
shallowness of the water off shore, and the 
unprotected character of their roadsteads. 
At both harbors were dredged, and moles 
and breakwaters erected. The canal to 
Bruges was deepened so that submarines 
might ascend and descend it at will. The 
engineers of the German army worked dili- 
gently and well, preparing the nests for the 
hornets which they hoped would sting Brit- 




8fc£J * MisikJ±^ 



The first photograph shown in America of the great French Land Cruisers sweeping across 

organized attack by six tanks 







*d and over the trenches. At great risk of his life the photographer secured this picture of an 
* trenches at the Battle of the Aisne 



4 8 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




© Underwood & Underwood 
Iummies resting after their attack on the German stronghold at Messines Ridge 



The struggle 
for the coast, 
which was 
fought out in a 
water-logged 
corner of Flan- 
ders, little big- 
ger than the 
District of Co- 
lumbia or the 
city limits of 
Chicago or 
New York, 
was a war in 
itself. 

It was a dif- 
ficult country 
for the opera- 
tions of armies. 
Sand dunes 
bordering the 
cold gray wat- 



ish commerce into a stupor, if not, in fact, to ers of the North Sea; sluggish tidal rivers 

death. making their way inland and connected for 

But these vantage points were not enough plodding barges by canals locked against 

for the Germans. They wanted Dunkirk, the rise and fall of the tides; the country 

Boulogne and Calais — especially Calais. For everywhere water-logged and at points as 

failing to direct its capture at the opening much as nine feet below the level of the 



of the war, Chief-of-Staff von Moltke had 
been retired to be succeeded by Falken- 
hayn. Now the army was set upon correct- 
ing its early error. But the time was no 
longer propitious. 



sea, protected by dykes which the troops 
used first for breastworks, and afterward as 
a refuge from the angry waters when the 
Belgians flooded their fields rather than sur- 
render this last bit of their native land — 




© Underwood & Underwood 
Belgian infantry defenders of Diest on the march, a Red Cross division at the right 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



49 



such was the 
topography ot 
the country in 
which the hos- 
t i 1 e armies 
grappled early 
in October af- 
ter the fall of 
Antwerp. 

No equal 
period of time 
in the world's 
history, no such 
limited space 
in the globe's 
geography ever 
witnessed so 
much of the 
horrors of war 
as Flanders 
during that 
struggle in 
dreariest winter. Not the soldiers alone, 
but hapless civilians felt war's scourge in its 
utmost savagery. The district was densely 
populated by a people mainly agricultural, 
but engaged in some degree in small home 
manufacturing industries. Little towns like 
Ypres, Ramscappelle, Furnes, Nieuport, and 
Dixmude, for centuries the homes of happy 
and thrifty people, possessing the quaintness 
and charm that attaches to the Flemish 
cities in which ancient architecture has with- 




Dutch soldiers on their way to guard the frontier 



stood the test of time, lay in the track of 
war and were ruthlessly blotted out. 

About 250,000 men, Belgian, French, and 
British, opposed the Germans on this part 
of the line. The Belgians, about 50,000 
strong, being on the extreme left, bore the 
shock of the conflict. The fighting raged 
for weeks without material advantage to 
either side. Indeed after two years of the 
war the opposing lines through Flanders 
were practically identical with those taken 




British marines disembarking a 



t Ustend receive a rousing welcome from the Belgians 



5° 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




© Underwood & Underwood 
A Bavarian corps passing the old Hercules Fountain at Augsburg, Germany 



when the German advance first reached 
Ostend. But nowhere and at no time in the 
history of the war has there been more 
savage fighting, nor have ever troops dared 
more or suffered more than those in the 
water-logged fields of Flanders. 

Dunkirk was the first objective of the 
Germans. After it, Calais. The activities of 
the British monitors, in the Channel, which 



could readily 
have been re- 
enforced by 
numbers of 
light-draught 
vessels, made 
the advance 
along the coast 
h a zardous. 
Accordingly at 
Westende the 
invading col- 
umns turned 
inland. But at 
once they en- 
countered the 
River Yser, 
with canals ex- 
tending in all 
directions from 
it. Behind 
these natural 




A British wiring party out to prepare tin- \\a\ for the advance 
one of the largest and most powerful in use by the British on the 
constructed railway 



defenses the Belgians, perhaps 50,000 of them, 
and the French had established themselves 
in force. Later a British corps, including 
several regiments of East Indians from La- 
hore, came to the aid of these forces. It 
had become apparent to General Joffre and 
Sir John French that in this water-logged 
corner of Europe the Germans intended to 
strike at their enemies with all the power of 

their marvel- 
ous morale, 
superb equip- 
ment, and 
overwhelming 
numbers. 

Five months 
of fighting 
without cessa- 
tion followed. 
A bleak, chill 
October passed 
into the bitter- 
ness of winter. 
The men who 
had long fought 
knee-deep in 
water now 
stood with 
freezing feet 
upon sheets of 
ice. Day by 
day news went 
out to the world 
of trivial suc- 



© Underwood & Underwood 
outside of \rras. 1 he mounted gun is 
western front. It moves on a specially 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



5i 



cesses or reverses. An advance of ninety 
yards was worth chronicling in the official 
reports. Villages were taken and re-taken. 
In the same day's news the same town would 
be noted as occupied by both armies, which, 
paradoxical as it might seem, was true, as 
neither occupied more than a small part of 
it, though destruction and death possessed it 
all. Not for 
years will the 
losses sustained 
by the armies 
struggling for 
the Yser be 
known — accu- 
rately they will 
never be 
known. For 
the first thirty 
days of fight- 
ing, however, 
the total losses 
of the Germans 
were estimated 
at 120,000 by 
one of their 
high officials. 
The French 
estimates were 
higher, while 
they put the 
losses of the 
Allies in the 
neighborhood 
of 75,000. 

The German 
troops engaged 
during October 
and early No- 
vember num- 
bered about 
600,000 men, 
according to 
French author- 
ities. They 
were com- 
manded at dif- 
ferent points in the line by the Crown Prince 
of Bavaria, General von Fabeck, General von 
Demling, and the Duke of Wiirtemburg. 
Animated by high ambition they were still 
further stimulated to daring by proclama- 
tions declaring it the will of the Kaiser that 
all Belgian resistance be stamped out before 
November 1st, in order that on the birthday 
of the Kaiser the announcement might be 



made to the world of the annexation of Bel- 
gium to the German Empire, the first spoil 
of war. 

At the outset this seemed an ambition 
easy of attainment. The Belgian army fleeing 
from Antwerp was utterly demoralized. The 
English army moving northward from the 
Aisne was delayed for lack of transportation. 




in hasu in .1 church in France 



On the coast and in Flanders the chief 
French force was made up of cavalry, terri- 
torials and drafted men from the navy — all 
under General Foch, and not strong enough 
to interpose a sufficient defense to the Ger- 
man assault. To the right of Foch, around 
Lille, was General Maudkin, and beyond his 
division was that of General de Castelnau 
near Arras. 



52 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




comrades in the 



trenches 



As rapidly as possible the French concen- 
trated in the neighborhood of Dixmude, 
holding the railroad line, and protected by 
the river and canals in their front. Behind 
them the Belgians were rapidly reorganizing. 
The Germans, avoiding for the time a frontal 
attack, sought to get around the left flank of 
the Allies, menacing Dunkirk and Calais and 
cutting the British off' from their base on the 
Channel. In this endeavor the antagonists 
fought in a flooded country, where trenches 
became ditches, and deep canals cut through 



the flooded fields lured on unsuspecting troops 
to watery graves. The savagery of the fight- 
ing exceeded anything known in war. At one 
point a ferryman's stone house, an object of 
attack alternately by both armies, was taken 
and retaken, until the fields awash around it 
were filled with floating bodies. Along the 
Yser, at Ypres and Ramscappelle, the armies 
were in such close contact that the fighting 
was much of the time hand-to-hand, and in 
the end neither force had gained any material 
advantage. 

At Ypres — which the British Tommies 
called "Wipers" — the fighting baffled de- 
scription. There the British bore the brunt 
of the conflict and there died almost to the 
last man, the remnant of the First Expedi- 
tionary Army, the "Old Contemptibles" 
who had thrown themselves into the war 
with such gallantry at its outset. They 
could have died, on no more glorious field 
than at Ypres. There they met the flower 
of the German army — the Prussian Guard, 
who were inspired by the Kaiser's own ap- 
peal for victory. Glory shone bright upon 
the Tommies — and death beat heavily upon 
them as well. Some 50,000 went down at 
Ypres under fire, while far back of the firing 
line fatigue and old age beat down Lord 
Roberts of Kandahar, Field Marshal of the 




German troops get fresh water twice a day in war time. These troops are near Liege, Belgium 






THE NATIONS AT WAR 




A train of supplies arrives at the front somewhere in France. Large motor trucks are in waiting as well as detachments of 
soldiers ready to unload them and send the supplies to their destinations 

British Army, and idol of all its fighting own land, and the desire of the Kaiser to an- 
men — the "Bobs" of whom Kipling wrote: nex Belgium was, for the moment at least, 

If you stand 'im on 'is 'ed 
'is 'ole body rains out lead. 

Too old to fight longer, Lord Roberts had 
come to the front to cheer on his old com- 
rades in arms, and his soul passed away — as 
he would have had it — to the roar of British 
guns on a victorious field. 

All authorities agreed that the losses of 
the Germans in this fighting far exceeded 
those of the Allies because of their stubborn 
adherence to the attack en masse. They 
charged in dense columns, eight abreast, of- 
fering a target no artillerist could possibly 
miss. "In certain trenches 120 metres long," 
says a French official report, "there have 
been found more than 2,000 corpses. This 
in spite of the fact that we know the Ger- 
mans, whenever it is possible for them to 
do so, remove their dead from the field of 
battle." 

As a result of three weeks' hard fighting 
along the Yser and about Ypres, the Belgian 
army was buttressed in its final hold upon its 




i.- r •■ WSkSb 




;% 



■- 



Trains carrying live cattle arrive; the soldiers have their 
own troubles in herding and keeping them from escaping into 
the surrounding country 



54 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Rheims Cathedra] before it was shattered by German shell tire 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




International . 



Ruined Rheims as seen from one of the Cathedral towers 



56 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




© Underwood & Underw 
The French regiments that won the recent Battle of Verdun passing in review at 
Louilly carrying their shell-riddled battle flags 

thwarted. Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne 
were saved for the Allies. The spirit of the 
Belgian troops was renewed, and that of the 
French and British greatly stimulated by the 
decided check to the German onrush. The 
Germans were not driven back, however. 
They dug themselves in, in Flanders, as they 
had done all across France, and the year 
closed without any indication of the ability 
of the Allies to drive them out. Neverthe- 
less the check was essentially 
an Allied victory. 

Calais was saved and was 
never again seriously menaced. 
But, checked in his advance, 
forced to a standstill as he was, 
the Kaiser still held at the 
end of 191 4 the position in 
the west practically of a con- 
queror. All Belgium, save 
perhaps 35 square miles in its 
extreme corner, was his. Bel- 
gian cities like Brussels, Ant- 
werp, and Ghent were ruled 
by his officers, and paid trib- 
ute to his treasury- His armies 
held about 8,000 square miles 
of French territory, inhabited 
by 2,500,000 Frenchmen. 
Save for a little corner of East 
Prussia, all the fighting was on 
the sod of his enemies; his 
own land knew little of the 
horrors of war. 



In carrying up to the end of 
1914 the story of the fighting 
in western France and Bel- 
gium it has been necessary to 
pass over the early invasion of 
Alsace-Lorraine by the French, 
their repulse and their later 
successes in that quarter. 

Promptly on the declara- 
tion of war the French armies 
entered Lorraine and Alsace. 
It has been charged that in 
so doing they subordinated 
wise and prudent strategy to 
sentiment and politics, but the 
charge is not wholly justifia- 
ble. Sentiment undoubtedly 
had its part. The thought of 
regaining the provinces lost to 
Bismarck and von Moltke, of 
heaping high the laurel 
wreaths of victory upon the 
Strassburg statue in the Place de la Concorde 
in place of the mourning wreaths that for 
nearly fifty years had draped it was very dear 
to the French heart. But nevertheless 
there was sound strategy in the invasion of 
Alsace-Lorraine, even in face of the advance 
of the Germans through Belgium. Only 
the unexpected size of the armies that 
the Germans rushed through that country 
and the phenomenal rapidity of Von Kluck's 




«■. Brown & 1 law 8 in 
The Senate chamber of the Belgian Parliament in Brussels is now used as a 
church by the otficers of the garrison. The Chaplain to the Kaiser is seen 
preaching a sermon 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



57 



advance set the French calcula- 
tions at naught. 

The very day the Germans 
began their assault upon Liege 
— August 7th — the French 
marched out of Belfort, their 
largest fortress on the eastern 
frontier, and began their in- 
vasion of Alsace. In twenty- 
four hours they had defeated 
the Germans at Altkirch, and 
occupied the town. A day 
later they took Mulhausen, the 
largest city of the Lost Prov- 
inces. But the same night the 
Germans returned to the attack 
and for days victory hung in 
the balance, vvhde French 
troops, undeterred by the 
menace in Belgium, kept pour- 
ing into the provinces. The 
people were in an ecstasy of 
enthusiasm, for almost half a 
century of German rule had not broken the 
ties of loyalty to France. German signs 
disappeared from the streets. The stone 
pillars marking the boundary line between 
France and Germany were dug up and thrown 
away. But it was too easy a conquest. Dis- 
aster was impending and befell them at 
Morhange, in Lorraine, on the 19th of Au- 
gust. Here the French were beaten badly, 
and there were not lacking ugly stories about 





© Brown & Dawson 
Uerman soldiers in their huts just behind the front lines in the I'orest of Argonne 
The foremost hut is the post office 



© Underwood & Underwood 
German artillery wildly bombarding the French line. Shells can be seen bursting 
only a few yards from the trenches 

the treachery of high officers, and the cow- 
ardice of whole commands. But the French 
wash their dirty linen in private and the 
facts of the courts martial and executions 
that followed the Battle of Morhange are 
not likely to be made public before the end 
of the war. 

Pushing after the retreating French the 
Germans cleared their territory of their foe, 
and pressed on through Luneville to the 
outskirts of Nancy. But their 
first attack on this stronghold 
was beaten back, and a later 
one, made at the very moment 
of the opening of the Battle of 
the Marne and pressed by the 
Crown Prince of Bavaria and 
General Heeringen, was deci- 
sively repulsed. The latter 
battle, though little known, 
was of notable bearing on the 
general conduct of the war. 
For it was the purpose of the 
German High Command to 
break through at Nancv, and 
roll down in an irresistible 
flood upon the right flank of 
Joffre's army, then beginning 
the offensive at the Marne. 
Had the attack succeeded, the 
Marne might have been a dis- 
aster to all humanity instead 
of the moment of triumph for 



58 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




'russia, brother uf the German Emperor, visits the head- 
quarters of the Crown Prince 

civilization and right. General de Castelnau 
deserves high place among those who saved 
Prance, and with it civilization. 

Through the bitter winter months of 
1914-15 there was cruel suffering in the five 
hundred miles of trenches that stretched 
from the English Channel to the Vosges— 
not 500 miles straight away, but by the 
tortuous lines of strategic construction. "The 
Labyrinth," for example, lying between 
Neuville and Ecury, is said to have included 
200 miles of trenches between two points 
only 50 miles apart. Here in the spring of 
191 5 occurred a bloody battle 
which filled the subterranean 
maze with dead but had no 
material bearing on the con- 
duct of the war. In the main, 
throughout the winter there 
was little fighting but much 
suffering in France. A young 
citizen of the United States 
fighting, as to their honor so 
many did, in the armies of 
France, gives this description 
of winter trench life in Flan- 
ders: 

Take a cold, damp cellar and 
flood it with some three to six inches 
of almost ice-cold mud; at a height 
of five feet from the floor stretch 
a tangle of wires; turn an electric 
current into the wires and let the 
voltage be so heavy that every wire 
will be as deadly as a third rail. 



INow blow out the light, crawl to 
the middle of the floor in the dark- 
ness, and stand erect, trusting to 
blind luck that your head won't 
touch the wire. These charged wires, 
in the darkness, represent the in- 
visible deadly trails of the bullets 
that fly over your head in the 
trenches. 

Of course, if you want to be safe 
in the cellar you can keep your head 
down, but if you did that in the 
trenches you would be neglecting 
your duty. It is your duty, for in- 
stance, to fire eight bullets an hour 
if on guard. Watchful eyes of officers 
will discover whether you are shoot- 
ing into the air or whether you are 
firing with your aim fixed on the 
enemy's trenches, and a good sen- 
tinel is supposed to raise his head 
above the trench every ten minutes 
to see what is going on outside. 

The same writer, Phil Rader by name, a 
San Franciscan, tells a story of Christmas 
in the trenches that vividly illustrates the 
nature of the fighting man: 

For twenty days we had faced that strip of land, 
forty-five feet wide, between our trench and that of 
the (lermans, that terrible No Man's Land, dotted 
with dead bodies, criss-crossed by tangled masses of 
barbed wire. That little strip of land was as wide 
and as deep and as full of death as the Atlantic Ocean; 
as uncrossable as the spaces between stars; as terrible 
as human hate. And the sunshine of the bright 
Christmas morning fell on it as brightly as if it were a 
lover's lane or the aisle in some grand cathedral. 










■**\' 



Stacking ammunition behind the front lines 

a day in one sector 



c underwood & I'mlerwood 
A stack like this is used 111 less than 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



59 



I don't know how the truce began in other trenches, on a pole, and stuck it above the trench, shouting to 

but in our hole Nadeem began it — Nadeem, a Turk, the Germans: 

who believes that Mohammed and not Christ was the "See how well you can shoot." 

Prophet of God. I he sunshine of the morning seemed Within a minute the target had been bulls'-eyed. 




The western front, early summer, 1916. Spring in the western theatre nf war again, as was the case in 1915, found the in- 
itiative in the hands of the Germans. They desired, first, to capture the French position of Verdun, which controls the line of 
the Meuse River. The French, however, resolutely refused to be driven back and, in the first weeks after the launching of the 
great German attack at Verdun, managed to make good their ground. To the hammering cf the most powerful heavy artillery 
ever brought into action, and the persistent assaults of the machine-like German infantry the French with equal persistence op- 
posed their own artillery and veteran troops. The French watchword was "They Shall Not Pass," and they made it good 



to get into Nadeem's blood. He was only an enthusi- 
astic boy, always childishly happy, and when we 
noticed, at the regular morning shooting hour, that the 
German trenches were silent Nadeem began to make 
a joke of it. He drew a target on a board, fastened it 



Nadeem pulled it down, pasted little bits of white paper 
where shots had struck, and held it up again so that 
the Germans could see their score. In doing so, Na- 
deem's head appeared above the trench, and we heard 
him talking across the No Man's Land. Thoughtlessly 



6o 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




^ Underwood & Underwood 
Scotch Highlander troops marching through a town in France on their way to 

the front 

1 raised my head, too. Other men did the same. We 
saw hundreds of German heads appearing. Shouts 
filled the air. What miracle had happened? Men 
laughed and cheered. There was Christmas light in 
our eyes and I know there were Christmas tears in 
mine. 

There were smiles, smiles, smiles, where in days 
before there had been only rifle-barrels. The terror 
of No Man's Land fell away. The sounds of happy 
voices filled the air. We were all unhumanly happy 
for that one glorious instant — English, Portuguese, 
Americans, and even Nadeem, the Turk — and savages 
as we had been, cavemen as we were, the awfulness 



of war had not filled the corners of 
our hearts where love and Christmas 
live. I think Nadeem was first to 
sense what had happened. He sud- 
denly jumped out of the trench and 
began waving his hands and cheering. 
The hatred of war had been suddenly 
withdrawn and it left a vacuum in 
which we human beings rushed into 
contact with each other. You felt 
their handshakes — double handshakes, 
with both hands — in your heart. 

Nadeem couldn't measure human 
nature unerringly. He had been the 
first to feel the holiday spirit of Christ- 
mas Day, but, on the day after Christ- 
mas, he failed to sense the gnmness of 
war that had fallen over the trenches 
during the night. Early in the morn- 
ing he jumped out of the trench and 
began waving his hands again. John 
Street, an American, who had been 
an evangelist in St. Louis, jumped out 



m 




\ scene on the Meuse Canal .it Bras. The motor harge is used for transporting 
troops across the canal to points down stream. This affords a quick movement 
of troops to the threatened position 



with him, and began to shout a morning greeting to 
a German he had made friends with the day before. 

There was a sudden rattle of rifle-fire and Street 
fell dead, with a bullet through his head. The sun 
was shining down again on a world gone mad. 

At Soissons, Arras, Lens and La Bassee 
JofFre attacked savagely during the winter 
without results that would have appreciable 
effect on the progress of the war. Probably 
the French commander expected little more, 
but it was his task to keep the Germans in 
his front too busy to think of sending rein- 
forcements to their brethren 
battling in Poland and Galicia. 
Such battles as that of the 
Argonne, which raged around 
Rheims and in which the joint 
losses exceeded 200,000 men, 
will hardly be recorded by his- 
tory, because of their appar- 
ently slight effect on the grand 
strategy. Yet they kept Ger- 
mans away from the fighting 
line in the east. Neuve Cha- 
pelle followed. Here the Ger- 
mans held a stoutly-built 
French farm village with pon- 
derous stone farm houses and 
walls. Three days' hard fight- 
ing in which the picturesque 
Indian troops of Great Britain 
were brought up, ended in- 
conclusively. The British held 
the ruined village, they had 
taken 2000 German prisoners 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



61 






reputation as possibly the best fighters in 
the British Army. They were all new hands. 
War had never come to that fortunate coun- 
try which lies north of the United States, 
beyond a border which is maintained without 
forts, without garrisons, without even men- 
of-war on the Great Lakes. After a scant 
six months of training in the great camps 
around London these Colonials took the 
field and sustained the attacks of the German 
forces like veterans. They had, furthermore, 
to meet for the first time two new and terri- 
fying engines of warfare — the asphyxiating 
gas and the curtain of fire. 

The use of a suffocating gas in warfare had 
been anticipated for years by writers spec- 
ulating on the new horrors which what we 
call civilization would bring to modern war. 
Novelists had long been describing it as a 
weapon which could not be met, and which 
would therefore make war impossible because 
of its very deadliness. The Chinese, who 




One of the 370 mm. French guns at the Verdun front 



ic) Underwood & Underwood 



and buried 3000 German dead. London 
thought it at the moment a colossal victory, 
and celebrated it with uproar. But it really 
brought slender advantages. 

During the month that the fighting was 
in progress in this section more than half a 
million men were in action on either side. 
Hardly had the echoes of this conflict died 
away when the Germans in their turn 
launched their great offensive in the west in 
the second battle of Ypres. They struck 
that section of the British line which was held 
by the Canadians linked up with the French. 
It was here that the men from Great Britain's 
most important American colony made their 



have had a habit of preceding us in many 
inventions, applied its principle in a small way 
with the bombs they called "Stink Pots." 
But the Germans first reduced the use of gas 
to something like a science, and the British, 
after a very brief period of heated denuncia- 
tion of the device as inhuman and barbaric, 
hastily adopted it for their own use. The 
gas, which is a product of chlorine, is of very 
heavy specific gravity, forming, when lib- 
erated from the receptacles in which it is 
carried to the front, a sort of greenish-yellow 
vapor which lies close to the ground. As 
there is no means of propelling it artificially, 
except when it is used in exploding shells, it 



62 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



can only be used when there is a favorable 
wind which will carry it toward the enemy's 
trenches. Given such a wind and reasonable 
good fortune it forms a most serviceable 
curtain for the advance of troops. For the 
gas not only is dense enough to conceal the 
lines advancing behind it, but if carried into 
a trench will almost instantly put its de- 
fenders out of action. Once inhaled it causes 
the most frightful agony, and if death does 
not occur to the victim it leaves him crip- 
pled and subject to all sorts of bodily distress 



the curtain of gas was that a shift in the wind 
might turn it back upon the troops following 
it and destroy them. The curtain of fire, 
though available only to clear a way for 
twenty or thirty feet, was not subject at least] 
to this disadvantage. Projected for that dis-l 
tance or more from tubes held in the hands of 
a line of advancing soldiers, this fiery scourge 
could neither be evaded nor sustained. 

An English correspondent who witnessed 
at Ypres the effect of this new and untried 
weapon upon soldiers who not only had noj 




A Gerinan religious service held on tin eve of a decisive battle in France. It has always been the custom in the German Army 
to hold a solemn service at which officers and soldiers assist before going into battle 



in after life. Very quickly, however, upon 
the appearance of chlorine gas as a factor 
in war, inventors produced a respirator which 
serves as an almost complete defense. It 
has the appearance of a cloth hood pierced 
for the soldier's eyes, but containing in the 
mouthpiece, fabrics prepared chemically 
which take from the gas all its deadly quali- 
ties as the soldier breathes. The men thus 
accoutred are of a weird and ghastly ap- 
pearance with no human features apparent 
save two huge and staring goggle eyes. 
They look not unlike the apparitions which, 
under the title of the Ku Klux Klan, in the 
days of Reconstruction, were used to terrify 
the negroes of the South into subjection. 
The chief difficulty involved in the use of 



encountered it before, but who had neverr 
even heard of it as a possibility, gives this 
account of its effect upon these troops: 

The strong northeast wind, which was blowing from 
the enemy's lines across the French trenches, became 
charged with a sickening, suffocating odor which was 
recognized as proceeding from some form of poisonous 
gas. The smoke moved like a vivid green wall some 
four feet in height for several hundred yards, extending 
to within 200 yards of the extreme left of our lines. 
Gradually it rose higher and obscured the view from 
the level. . . . 

Soon strange cries were heard, and through the 
green mist, now growing thinner and patchy, there came 
a mass of dazed, reeling men who fell as they passed 
through our ranks. The greater number were uri- 
wounded, but they bore upon their faces the marks of 1 
agony. 




BELGIUM 



Government.:, 
Ruler: 
Area: 

Population: 

Date of entering the war: 
Army : 
Navy: 

Merchant Marine: 
Commerce with Germany 
before the war: 

Greatest exports: 

Reason for entering the war: 



Constitutional monarchy 

Albert 

11,373 square miles 

7,000,000 

August 4, 1914 

500,000 

None 

184,000 tons 

Exports, $126,730,000; im- 
ports, $79,120,000 (1913) 

Wool, iron, flax 

Refusal to allow Germany 
to violate her neutrality 
and attack France 

German troops invaded 
Belgium and after stub- 
born resistance occupied 
all but a small strip of 
territory 



ITALY 



Government: 

Ruler: 

Area: 

Population: 

Date of entering the war: 

Army (field strength): 

Navy: 



Commerce with Germany: 

Greatest exports: 

Reason for entering the war: 

National Wealth: 
National Debt: 



Constitutional monarchy 

Victor Emmanuel III. 

111.000 square miles 

36,000,000 

May 23, 1915 

4.000,000 

About: 5 dreadnoughts, 7 

p r e -d re a dnoughts, 24 

cruisers, 48 destroyers, 26 

submarines 
Exports. $64,000; imports, 

$100,600 (1914) 
Raw silk, cotton and silk 

manufactures 
To regain her lost provinces 

from Austria 
$25,000,000,000 
$6,000,000,000 





JAPAN 



Government: 

Ruler: 

Area: 

Population: 

Date of entering the wax: 

Army (field strength): 

Navy: 



Commerce with Germany 
before the war: 

Greatest exports: 

Reason for entering the war: 



National Wealth: 
National Debt: 



Limited monarchy 

Yoshihito 

148,000 square miles 

56.000,000 

August 23, 1914 

1 ,5<X),000 

About: 10 dreadnought?, 13 
pre-drea dnoughts, 25 
cruisers. 77 destroyers, 1'* 
submarines 

Exports. $34,247,000; .im- 
ports, $22,416,000 

Raw silk, cotton tissues 

To assist her ally. Great 
Britain, and maintain the 
peace of the Orient 

$28,000,000,000 

$1,300,000,000 



SERBIA 



Government: 

Ruler: 

Area: 

Population: 

Date of entering the war : 
Army (war basis): 
Navy: 

Commerce with Germany 
before the war: 

Greatest exports; 

Reason for entering the war : 



Constitutional monarchy 

since 1889 
Peter Karageorgevich I. 

Ascended throne 1903 
34.000 square miles 
4,600.000 
July 28, 1914 
175,000 
None 

Exports, $4,370,000; im- 
ports, $2,300,000 

Wheat, hides, etc. 

Austria imposed 28 de- 
mands on Serbia, some of 
which it was obviously 
impossible for Serbia to 
accede to and maintain an 
independent sovereignty 



] 




6 4 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




The retiring men were among the first soldiers of 
the world whose sang-froid and courage have been 
proverbial throughout the war. All were reeling 
through us and round us like drunken men. 

It was reported some years before the war 
that the Kaiser, when on a visit to his uncle 
King Edward VII, of England, had suggested 
that an international agreement prohibiting 
the use of asphyxiating gas in war should be 
entered into by the principal nations of 
Europe. Nothing came of the humanitarian 
suggestion however. Its failure would per- 
haps be more generally deplored if the 
Kaiser had shown a greater inclination to re- 
spect already existing international agree- 
ments for ameliorating the barbarities of war. 

Once launched by the Germans, however, 
the use of the gas spread rapidly among all 
nations, and new devices for increasing its 
deadly effect were of almost monthly inven- 
tion. Merely turning the gas loose from its 
retorts and trusting to a favoring breeze to 
carry it down upon the enemy trenches soon 
came to be regarded as an uncertain and 
treacherous method. Too often it recoiled 
upon it users. Accordingly as the war pro- 
gressed the gas was enclosed in bombs, hand 
grenades and shells. Under the original 
method the imperilled troops would see the 
deadly greenish-gray vapor moving down 
upon them but so slowly that they had 
ample time to seize and adjust their gas 
masks before it reached their trench. But a 



great shell, filled with the choking chemicals 
would, on explosion, fling its noxious vapors 
almost instantly into the farthest corner of 
a trench. Since this method of attack has 
become common the drill for putting on 
masks allows only six seconds for their ad- 
justment. Longer delay may mean death. 
The slightest whiff" of the fumes paralyzes a 
man's faculties so that he cannot perform any 
intelligent action. 

A British soldier who was in a position to 
observe the chaos created in the French lines 
by the first gas attack thus described it: 

Utterly unprepared for what was to come the French 
divisions gazed for a short while spellbound at the 
strange phenomenon they saw coming slowly toward 
them. Like some liquid the heavy colored vapor 
poured relentlessly into the trenches, filling them, and 
passed on. For a few seconds nothing happened; the 
sweet-smelling stuff merely tickled their nostrils; they 
failed to realize the danger. Then with inconceivable 
rapidity, the gas worked and blind panic spread. 
Hundreds, after a dreadful fight for air, became uncon- 
scious, and died where they lay — a death of hideous 
torture with the frothing bubbles gurgling in their 
throats, and the foul liquid welling up in their lungs. 
With blackened faces and twisted limbs one by one 
they drowned — only that which drowned them came 
from inside and not from out. Others staggering, 
falling, lurching on, and of their ignorance keeping pace 
with the gas, went back. A hail of rifle fire and shrapnel 
mowed them down and the line was broken. There 
was nothing on the British left. Their flank was up 
in the air. The northeast corner of the salient around 
Ypres had been broken. From the front of St. Julian 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



65 



away up north toward Boesinghe there was no one in 
front of the Germans. 

But the really significant fact about the 
gas is that horrible as it is, excruciating as is 
the torment it inflicts upon its victims, it 
has as yet exerted no appreciable effect upon 
the progress of the war. It was a matter of 
hours before the first protective mask had 
been invented, and of days only before the 
busy women of France had fabricated enough 
to meet the immediate needs of their de- 
fenders. A new and terrible weapon had 
been added to war's weapons, but it was to 
the advantage of neither side for both at 
once employed it. The uses and varieties 
of gas multiplied. There was the lachryma- 
tory gas which being set free in a trench 
caused the defenders' eyes to be so suffused 
with tears that they were unable to use their 
weapons for defense against the assault 
which instantly followed. Another gas, as 
deadly as the chlorine, did not manifest its 
fatal qualities for hours after inhalation, and 



apparently strong men who protested bit- 
terly against being taken to the hospital, 
would die in cruel torture from its effects 
hours later. The latest development is the 
gas bomb to be dropped from airplanes into 
the crowded trenches. In the use of these 
American aviators are being especially drilled. 
In May Ypres and the Yser River became 
once more the battleground. The Germans 
this time forced the fighting, and their pur- 
pose was clearly to reopen the campaign for 
Calais which had so signally failed in the 
fall. There was savage fighting in the water- 
logged country intersected by sluggish canals 
which attacking parties sometimes swam 
under fire, at other times crossed on rude 
rafts in the face of a storm ol bullets against 
which it seemed that no life could endure. 
In the end it all came to nothing. By this 
time the British Army so slowly raised and 
so arduously drilled on the plain of Salisbury 
had come to be a war machine worth reck- 
oning with. 




Bridge at Termonde, blown up to check the German advance 



(£) International News Service 



CHAPTER III 

THE WAR IN THE EAST — RUSSIA STRIKES FIRST — GERMAN TROOPS CALLED 

FROM FRANCE — BATTLE OF TANNENBURG FIRST APPEARANCE OF HINDEN- 

BURG — AUSTRIA IN THE WAR — THE FIGHTING IN POLAND — TREACHERY IN 
RUSSIAN CAMPS — THE LONG STRUGGLE FOR WARSAW — SWEEPING GERMAN 
SUCCESSES DEATH OF LORD KITCHENER — GALICIA AND BUKOVINA DIS- 
TRESS of Austria — Russia's internal weakness — the monk rasputin 




O all-compelling and 
spectacular was the 
march of theGerman 
hosts through Bel- 
giu n and France to the very 
gates of Paris that during 
the first six weeks of the 
war attention 
was little di- 
rected to its 
progress in 
eastern Europe 
— on the bor- 
ders of Austria 
and S e r v i a 

(where the con- 
■■ H 

started, and on 
the Russo-Ger- 
man frontier 
where lay from 
W ~ J the very first 
Germany's point of greatest weakness. 

Among military experts generally August 
6th was fixed as about the earliest date upon 
fhich the Russians could complete mobiliza- 
on and take the offensive. But fully two 
/eeks earlier the Czar's legions were invading 
Last Prussia and Galicia. The swiftness of 
he Russian advance found Germany most 
nadequately prepared. Only three army 
orps, less than 150,000 men in all, were 
vailable for defense in East Prussia when 
he Russians first struck at Gumbinnen on 
Vugust 20, 1914. So thoroughly had the 
Caiser stripped his eastern frontier of troops 
n order the more certainly to overwhelm 
Belgium and France that the Russians, with 
nore than 750,000 men, at first seemed able 
sweep all before them. In a week the 
greater part of East Prussia was in their pos- 
session and Konigsberg, a fortified town of 



250,000 inhabitants on the Baltic, and the 
fortresses of Thorn and Gradenz, were be- 
sieged. 

Examination of the map will show the 
nature of the strategic problem with which 
the Russians had to grapple. That part of 
the Czar's domain known as Russian Poland 
projects to the westward between East 
Prussia and Austria-Hungary until it reaches 
a point only 140 miles from Berlin as the 
crow flies. From the first Berlin was the 
Czar's objective though the topography of 
the country in which his armies operated 
made it equally easy for him until late in 
his campaign to strike at either Vienna or 
Berlin, while the magnitude of his armies 
made it perfectly possible for him to menace 
both capitals. But by agreement with the 
Allies he was to threaten Berlin from the very 
beginning of his operations in order that the 
Kaiser might be compelled to recall some of 
his troops from France to protect his own 
capital. 

Though it would appear that the westward 
thrust of Russian Poland made it simple for 
the Russians to begin their invasion of Ger- 
many within 140 miles of Berlin, the princi- 
ples of safe strategy would not permit this. 
The frontiers of East Prussia to the north and 
Galicia to the south were lined with hostile 
Germans and Austrians who would close in 
behind the Russian troops, should they take 
the most direct route to Berlin, and cut them 
ofF from their base. 

Russia struck first at East Prussia, where 
there were only three German army corps, or 
about 150,000 men, to meet. To sweep them 
away the Czar dispatched two armies — one 
under Rennenkampf entering Prussian ter- 
ritory from the east; the other coming north 
from the neighborhood of Warsaw under 
Samsonoff. For this overwhelming force 



67 



68 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




These are a few of the children made orphans by the war. They are being cared for on an estate outside of Petrograd which 

is supported by private subscriptions 



which the Czar put into the field the German 
force was at first hardly a stumbling block. 
Despite the gallant resistance, despite, too, 
the difficult nature of the campaign, the in- 
vaders moved resistlessly onward until the 
menacing progress of their armies forced the 
Kaiser to recall two army corps from the 




Russian field bakery in a riding school at Suwalki in Russian Poland 



forces operating before Paris. That was the 
moment when Von Kluck halted his hitherto 
resistless march upon the French capital. 
It was the critical incident which showed 
that the delay in Belgium and the unexpected I 
swiftness of Russian mobilization had de- 
feated the Kaiser's plan of first crushing: 
France and then turning up- 
on the Russian Bear. The 
moment when the diversion 
of German troops from France 
to East Prussia was compelled 
was as fraught with impor- 
tance to the history of Europe 
as was to the history of the 
United States the appearance 
of the Monitor in Hampton 
Roads on the very day when, 
but for it, the Merrimac would 
have completed the destruc- 
tion of the Union fleet and 
put to sea to lay the cities 
of the North under tribute. 

Under command of General 
Rennenkampf, a dashing cav- 
alryman who brought back 
from the war in Manchuria 
the title of "the Russian Ti- 
ger," it took the Russians 
scarcely a week to sweep so 
far into German Poland that 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



69 




iissian troops on 



the non-military world began to think that 
Germany's downfall was destined to come 
from that quarter. 

Konigsberg, Thorn, and Gradenz, all 
fortresses of the first class, were invested be- 




A squad of Russian troops lined up gives a general idea of the various types in the 

Russian Army 



way to the front 

fore the German force under General Hin- 
denburg was sufficiently reenforced to make 
headway against the invaders. To secure 
these reinforcements, Belgian towns that 
had been taken at the sacrifice of thousands 

of German lives were stripped 

of their garrisons, and the line 
of communication of the army 
before Paris, with its base at 
Aix-la-Chapelle, was left so 
scantily guarded as to tempt 
the Belgian army to new ac- 
tivity. 

But when the Germans did 
turn their attention to tin; 
Russians in eastern Prussia 
the work they did was sharp 
and effective. In all. General 
Hindenburg had about 350,- 
000 troops to oppose to a 
vastly superior Russian force, 
but within a week he had 
pushed them back from the 
fortified positions they men- 
aced, forced Samsonoff to fight 
the pitched battle of Tannen- 
burg, and defeated him decis- 
ively, capturing nearly 80,000 
men. 

The district in which occur- 



70 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




j < 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



7i 



red the battle, which the Germans call 
Tannenburg and the Russians Allenstein, 
is sparsely inhabited, with few railroads and 
bad highways. It is part of what is known 
as the Masurian Lake district, a region of 
sandy hillocks, scant patches of forest, and 
innumerable bodies of water ranging from 
small pools to considerable lakes. 
Much of the land that seems to 
the eye solid is in fact a bog which 
refuses to support the weight of a 
man. The lakes are doubly treach- 
erous becaure across some extend 
fords of sand or gravel capable of 
carrying the heaviest burdens, 
while the bottom of a sheet of 
water only a few hundred yards 
away will be of illimitable mud. 
In places ridges of sand or clay 
extend into the lake and come to 
a sudden end. leaving any body of 
troops that think to use them as 
fords, entrapped in deep water or 
deeper mud. By ages of labor the 
Germans had laid out narrow turn- 
pikes between the lakes, but these 
were insufficient for the passage of 
any large army and out of touch 
with each other. There was no pos- 
sibility of deploying troops between 
the roads. If the road was so 
crowded that the marching men 
spread out into the adjacent fields, 
they would find themselves mired. 
It was almost impossible to judge 
by the appearance of the surface 
whether the ground might be trust- 
ed to bear any considerable burden. 

The physical menace of this 
treacherous territory would have 
been as great to either side had it 
not been that the Germans were 
commanded by a man who had 
foreseen years before the possibility 
of a great battle in this territory and prepared 
himself to utilize to the fullest extent all its 
treacherous qualities against any possible 
enemy. General von Hindenburg was born 
in this section of eastern Prussia, served all 
his life in the army, and years before asked 
to be assigned to duty in this section the 
very nature of which might well repel any 
soldier. 

With his knowledge of the nature of the 
battlefield to which he was inviting the Rus- 
sian invaders, Hindenburg calmly awaited 



their attack. He was confident that once 
they were enmeshed in that water-logged 
region his superior knowledge of the terri- 
tory would make amends for any possible 
shortage in his men. The first clash between 
the two forces had resulted in Russian vic- 
tory. With two armies, numbering in the 




Austro-Hungarian troops climbing to the heights of the Carpathians 



neighborhood of 200,000 men, they had ad- 
vanced into East Prussia both from the east 
and from the south. They encountered the 
Germans first at Gumbinnen, defeated them 
there and drove them back upon Konigsberg. 
A few days later another Russian army, 
again enjoying the superiority in numbers, 
overwhelmed a German army corps near 
Frankenau. By the 25th of August a vast 
crowd of refugees was fleeing to the west- 
ward and it seemed that nothing would 
block the Russian advance. But by this 



72 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Russian wounded, having been bandaged with first aid in the trenches, waiting for an ambulance to pick them up 



time Von Hindenburg had secured what he 
believed to be a sufficient force and was ready 




Russian wounded arriving at base hospital 



to make a stand. His troops were drawn in 
part from the German line as far away as 
Flanders. In all he had probably 200,000 
men or nearly as many as the Russian, Gen- 
eral Samsonoff, who opposed him. Within 
forty-eight hours after the opening of battle 
he had dealt the Russians such blows that 
nothing was left for them but retreat. Then 
followed the greatest disaster of the early 
days of the war to the Allied forces. For 
Hindenburg had so utilized his knowledge ot 
the Masurian Lake country that he had 
penned the unfortunate Russians in that be- 
wildering and fatal maze of marshes, creeks, 
lakes, and quagmires. He was well provided 
with field artillery, and the heavy fire of his 
guns made the orderly retreat of the Rus- 
sians along the narrow roads impossible. 
They broke and took to the fields, only to 
find that what appeared to be solid ground 
was in fact an impassable bog in which horses, 
men and guns slowly sank from sight. They 
essayed the passage of the lakes by fords 
which led them as far as the middle of the 
waters and then dropped them off to de- 
struction. There was no possibility of rear 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



73 














- 1 


1 B 


\K -j 


'-■ ' ' \\SN&&i\\ ii 


^*r' 







><« 



Hundreds of thousands of soldiers have been put out of action in the severe fighting of the first two years of the war. Who 

can estimate the number of maimed soldiers in Russia to-day? 

*uard fighting that would cover such a re- 
:reat. There was no chance of cooperation 
setween the various bodies of the army which 
rapidly became demoralized. The accounts 
of eye-witnesses are ghastly in their descrip- 
tions of the cries of whole battalions of men 
rising out of the night from some dark quick- 
sand in which they were being slowly en- 
gulfed. 

The portion of the Russian army that was 
Icaught in this colossal trap was fairly an- 
nihilated. More than 80,000 men were cap- 
tured by the Germans, and it is estimated that 
almost as many more lost their lives. The 
fragments of the army recoiled upon Russia 
and it was long before they recuperated 
sufficiently to take up again the task of in- 
vading East Prussia. Numbers of the pris- 
oners and hundreds of the captured cannon 
were sent to Berlin where they arrived in 
season to be paraded in triumph before the 
people on the anniversary of Sedan. It was 
at least some compensation to the German 
nation for the failure of the army in the west 
to enter Paris on that day. Almost as im- 



^ 






Loyal Russian troops surprise motor truck manned 
tinous sailors from Kronstadt 



74 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



portant as the Battle of the Marne itself, 
Tannenburg did much to rob that great 
French victory of its legitimate fruits. For 
had Hindenburg failed, the Kaiser would 
have had to strip his western front of troops 
to protect his own territory, and in that event 
the expulsion of the Germans from France 
would have been almost inevitable. 

By the 1st of October the whole of eastern 
Prussia had been cleared of Russians, the 
Germans having there concentrated their 






would belong to Russia, and the frontier be 
pushed back to the south where the line il 
of the Carpathian Mountains rears a natural'! 
barrier between the two countries. Inter-' 
national politics, however, made Galicia Aus- * 
trian nearly forty years earlier, and as I 
nature had left it peculiarly exposed to "J- 
Russian invasion, it became to the war in the J 
east what Belgium was in the west — the *' 
great field of battle of the warring nations. |» 
Austria was in no way fitted to cope with f 




German troops attend service in the garrison church at Przemysl 



main endeavors in the east. Besides freeing 
their own territory of the enemy, they were 
trying to divert the Russians from the inva- 
sion of Galicia to the south, which by this time 
was shown to be the main feature of the Rus- 
sian campaign. But from this the Russians 
refused to be diverted. 

If the reader will consult again the general 
map of the scene of the war in the east he 
will see that just south of that part of Rus- 
sian Poland which juts out into German 
territory lies the Austrian province of Ga- 
licia. If natural boundaries formed in fact 
the boundaries of states in Europe, Galicia 



Russia in the field. An intensely military I 
nation, if the tone of her society in time of J 
peace is at all representative, she has had I 
a more inglorious record ot defeats and un- I 
successful wars than any other power of I 
Europe. The nominal war strength of her I 
armies, 1,360,000 with a maximum strength | 
of 4,320,000, is far more impressive than their I 
history. The last time Austria-Hungary ap- 
peared in panoply of war — except in petty, 
Balkan quarrels — was in 1866 when her. 
forces were decisively beaten at Koniggratz 
by the Prussians, their allies in the war of 
1914. 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




It- Russians were long halted on the line shown in Galicia. Cracow and Przemysl were both relieved by the Germans 

the very eve of surrender 



on 



TEX 



Danz^i 



| Ko*n<S-? *virna 

tKoruJsbrrg < 4 

f 



.HAMBURG ' 



IA 

ft. ^- •Allenstem ^ L. 

^*audeni ^-•*"' •Ossovvetz 



Qv 



BERLIN _" V> 



Posen yf 



vtKalisK 



P O 1^ 



iL. S I 

■ War saw. \ Brest- UtovsK 



A 



^ 



A M" Id 



V'-ENNA 



'ressbu-r^ 



v s 




• Budapest * *X V A «?\. 



General map of the Eastern Theatre of War, the shaded portion showing extent of the Russian advance. About this time 
he Russians menaced Kbnigsberg, were beaten at Allenstein, and in Galicia progressed as far as Przemysl, while their cavalry 
lassed beyond the Carpathians. The Germans pushed east in Poland almost to Warsaw 



7 6 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



After having lighted the fuse that fired the 
war magazine of all Europe, Austria settled 
back to an inglorious career of futile self- 
defense. Her armies did indeed bombard 
Belgrade and begin a brief invasion of Serbia, 
but were sharply checked by the Serbians 
and speedily called back to meet the Rus- 
sian menace to the north. A brief rush into 
the territory of the Bear carried the Aus- 
trian standards as far as Lublin in Russian 
Poland. There they stopped. The Russian 
armv, estimated at a million strong, struck 
in its turn. Remorselessly, overwhelmingly, 
rolling resistlessly onward like a tidal wave, 
it bore back the Austrians by sheer power 
of weight. 

There were no such ponderous fortresses 
to stay the Russian progress in Galicia as 
confronted the Germans in Belgium. Lem- 
berg, a place of moderate strength, was 
taken September 1st, after an eight -day 
battle, the victory being accompanied by the 
capture of an enormous body of Austrians, 
estimated at the time at 80,000, and the 
killing or wounding of half as many more. 
To Russia the victory was an offset to the 
disaster of Tannenburg which befell the same 
week. Practically as many men were lost to 







Peasant women in Petrograd about to enlist in the Battalion of Death 



Austria here as were there lost to Russia. 
This victory had its prompt effect on the 
German lines before Paris. It was only toc> 
clear that with Lemberg fallen and the Rus- 
sians outnumbering the Austrians near! 
three to one, there was a new danger threa 
ening Berlin from the south and east. At the 
beginning of the war Austria, thinking like 
her ally that Russia was too big to move 
swiftly, had lent two army corps to Ger- 
many. These were hastily recalled. With 
them came five German corps, snatched from 
Von Kluck and Von Buelow while the Battle! 
of the Marne was in progress. The newn 
comers set themselves stubbornly across the 
Russian path and there followed weeks of 
fighting as desperate as that in the fair fields' 
of France and Belgium. 

Despite the overpowering numbers of the 
Russians, however, the operations of Septem-i 
ber, 1914, showed them quite incapable of 
overcoming the superior discipline and stra-i 
tegic skill of the Germans, though the Aus 
trians alone were no match for them. 

By the end of September the Austrians 
had successfully withdrawn their troop9 
which had at the outset invaded Russian 
Poland. Forming a junction with the right 
wing of the Austrian army, these troop? 
took up a line with their left resting on the 
Vistula River, and their right resting on 
Przemysl, whose ring of forty-one forts con-i 
nected by railroads and garrisoned 
by 60,000 men long held the in-i 
vaders in check. Jaroslav, anothj 
er fortress of less power, also 
proved a serious stumbling-block 
in the Russians' path. Beyond it; 
and extending to Cracow, the 
force opposed to the Russians was 
main y composed of Germans 
and against them the forces of the 
Czar made but little headway 
September ended with these two 
armies beating against each other 
with but little decisive result 
The ceaseless attrition of the Rus- 
sian hordes, however, had tolc 
heavily upon the Austrians, whc 
are estimated to have lost durinj 
the month's campaigning 300,00c 
men and 1,000 guns, or nearK 
a third of their entire force. Dur- 
ing this period, too, the Serb; 
and Montenegrins had been bus} 
on the southern borders of Aus- 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



77 



tria, compelling that nation to keep at 
least 500,000 men there. 

Essentially the Russian army at this time 
might be taken as a single line of battle, 
numbering about 2,300,000 men, extending 
from the Baltic Sea to the Carpathians. In 
East Prussia it was confronted by a 
German army of 1,000,000 men. In 
Russian Poland the Germans had 
about 500,000, and, though outnum- 
bered by the Russians, held them 
long in check on their own soil. In 
the south the Germans and Austnans 
together had perhaps 1,000,000 more. 

At the beginning of the month of 
September it had appeared that the 
Russian advance was irresistible. 
But the world was deceived. That 
marvelous fighting machine the 
Kaiser and his General Staff had so 
patiently builded proved equal to 
this new emergency. Scarcely had 
the real fighting force of Germany 
come into contact with the Russian 
advance early in October when all 
was checked. The invaders receded 
from Cracow and from Przemysl, 
and abandoned their advance to the 
south of the Carpathians. The 
world wondered at this retreat in 
the face of continuous victory, but 
it was learned in time that the Rus- 
sian supplies of munitions of war 
had been exhausted. Two years 
later when the revolution in Rus- 
sia had overthrown the corrupt 
autocracv the world learned that 
this shortage was due to German in- 
trigue. Grand dukes and generals 
took German pay for directing their 
ammunition trains and their reserves 
in the wrong direction, and for 
opening convenient gaps in their 
lines through which the Germans 
might advance to victory. 

It was months before the armies of 
the Czar were suitably equipped to resume 
the offensive. Meantime the Germans pushed 
into Russian Poland and soon it was War- 
saw, a Russian capital, instead of Cracow, the 
Austrian stronghold, that was endangered. 
It was the German objective, and for these 
six months was the point upon which con- 
verged all the German lines of attack. These 
lines came from the north up the Vistula, 
from the south down the Vistula, and directly 



from the west with Breslau for the German 
base. 1 he first army was commanded by 
General von Hindenburg in person, the sec- 
ond by General Dankl of the Austrian army, 
and the third by the Crown Prince of Ba- 
varia. The concerted movement was begun 




Austro-Hungarian troops in the heights of the Carpathians taking their 
morning hath 



October 4th, and the forces then engaged 
numbered on the German side about 400,000 
with about 200,000 Austrians. They were 
heavily outnumbered by the Russians under 
the Grand Duke Nicholas, but nevertheless 
pressed to the very suburbs of Warsaw with- 
out serious check in the first week of the 
fighting. Here their path was blocked by 
not less than a million Russians, who held 
the trenches in the German front while their 
great numbers enabled them to flank the 
invaders with both cavalry and infantry. 



7« 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



79 



Before this overwhelming force the invaders 
retreated, and bv the end of the month were 
virtually expelled from Russian soil. 

But to accomplish this Russia had been 
compelled to recall in part her armies from 
Galicia and the Carpathians. The siege of 
Przemysl was raised, to be renewed later, the 




A portion of the town of Malvana, Poland, after it had been shelled by the Germans 



troops of the Czar were withdrawn from 
Jaroslav, and Hungary was freed from their 
presence. These sacrifices had been com- 
pelled by the menace of Von Hindenburg's 
westward drive. 

With his retreat it appeared that Russia 
would retake her lost ground. Again Rus- 
sian troops flowed over into East Prussia and 
Galicia. By the middle of November Przem- 
ysl was again invested, the Cossacks were in 



the passes of the Carpathians, and the Czars' 
guns pounded at the gates of Cracow. The 
Russians, save for their heavy and irreparable 
losses at Tannenburg, had regained the ad- 
vantage they had lost. 

But it was again only the ebb of the Ger- 
man tide. Once more it turned to the flood 
and flowed back across the 
territory. Ending their 
retreat about the middle 
of November, the Gen- 
eral Staff hurriedly con- 
centrated their eastern 
armies in the neighbor- 
hood of Thorn and again 
turned their faces toward 
Warsaw. Their advance 
menaced Russian com- 
munications and did in 
fact cut the railroad lines 
which tied the chief Rus- 
sian army to Warsaw. 
But the movement had 
its perils. As the Ger- 
mans had cut the Rus- 
sian communications, so 
the Russian armies in 
Galicia and in East Prus- 
sia could close in behind 
the audacious invaders and 
cut them ofF. This was 
precisely what they did, 
and, beginning November 
15th, ten days of continu- 
ous fighting ended in Rus- 
sian victory. The news- 
paper reports from Petro- 
grad were delirious with 
claims of victory, and even 
Berlin admitted disaster. 
Warsaw had been saved 
after the Kaiser's troops 
had come within sound of 
its bells. Von Hindenburg 
was reported, falsely, a 
prisoner. At Lodz and at 
Mlwa the Germans were decisively beaten. 
East Prussia was still occupied by the Rus- 
sians in force, and in Galicia the Czar's suc- 
cesses were daily augmenting, and the Aus- 
trian armies were rapidly disintegrating. 
Though in the neighborhood of Lodz and 
Lowicz German successes were reported, the 
main story of the fighting along the eastern 
battleline was one of German disaster. 
When December was ushered in it appeared 



8o 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



that the Russians by mere force of numbers 
had check&d finally the German advance upon 
Warsaw. Not much was heard of the earlier 
Russian promise of "Berlin in three weeks," 
but the decisiveness with which the German 
advance upon Warsaw had been stopped 
without compelling the Russians to withdraw 
from either East Prussia or Galicia was gen- 
erally accepted by observers as indicative of 
the end. 

Then in a few weeks Von Hindenburg, 
backed by the marvelous efficiency of the 
German army, turned the tables for the third 
time, and once again Berlin rang with the 
praises of her new war-lord. 

All of Von Hindenburg's plans centred 
upon a descent upon Russian Poland from 
East Prussia. Much of the territory in which 
he planned to operate was marshy, full of 
small lakes, and intersected with sluggish 
streams. The roads were mere dirt highways 
difficult in wet weather for ordinary luggage 
vans, but utterly impassable for the heavy 
artillery which Von Hindenburg intended to 
marshal against his foe. In December, then, 
the Germans began to prepare for a winter 
campaign and a third attack on Warsaw. 



The frozen roads and rivers were to be the 
highways; the snow should bear the German 
baggage trains newly mounted on runners. 
The familiar gray-green of the German in- 
fantry disappeared, or was covered up by 
heavy sheepskin coats, white and invisible 
against the snow. Cannon were mounted on 
runners. Motor sledges of new types ap- 
peared. Scouting parties on foot were 
equipped with skiis. Great depots of winter 
supplies were established at Thorn and 
Posen. Lodz, the chief manufacturing town 
of Poland, and Lowicz, an important railroad 
centre, were heavily fortified, the industrial 
edifices of the towns being torn down to 
supply material for the forts, and guns 
brought from the Krupp Works in Essen for 
the armament. 

In the struggle for Warsaw, the price paid 
by each of the contestants was a heavy one. 
Owing to the policy of secrecy adopted by all 
the governments involved, the precise losses 
of each in any given battle, campaign, or 
month of the war will not be known definitely 
for years, or until official historians begin to 
give out the authorized accounts of the cam- 
paigns. Petrograd, however, claimed that 




A view of the banks of the river San in Przemysl. This picture was taken while the Russians had possession uf the Galician 
fortress which they took after a protracted siege but were unable to hold 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




© Underwood & Underwood 
Bridge blown up by the Russian troops to cut off or delay the advancing Teutons. The bridge can be seen buckling and about 

to fall 



the Germans had lost more than 200,000 men 
in their efforts to reach Warsaw up to Janu- 
ary, 1915- Prisoners to the number of 
135,840 were claimed by the Russians. 
These figures were strenuously denied by 
the Germans who claimed themselves to hold 
306,290 Russian prisoners, bes des 3,575 
officers. 

On the last day of the year the Germans 
claimed to have taken 136,000 prisoners, 100 
cannon, and 300 machine guns in the Poland 
campaign within two months. 

Yet despite this fierce fighting, this mar- 
shaling of legions of men and multitudes of 
guns from prodigious distances — Von Hinden- 
burg was said to have 30,000 auto trucks for 
transportation purposes — this campaign end- 
ed with the struggling forces just where they 
began. 

But early in the spring of 191 5 the Rus- 
sians, being in possession of Przemysl, deter- 
mined to invade Hungary by way of the 
Carpathian passes. For the time operations 
in East Prussia were confined on the part of 
the Russians strictly to the defensive. The 
Germans indeed were pressing them hard 



enough there to keep them busy. The ad- 
vance through the Carpathian Mountains 
went well enough at the outset. As in the 
earlier attacks the Austrians proved no 
match for the multitudinous soldiers of the 
Great White Czar. But the Germans rushed 
reinforcements and leaders to the threatened 
point and just at the most critical moment 
struck the Russian line on the Dunajec River, 
broke it, and thereby flanking the line 
through the Carpathians, forced the hurried 
retreat of the Russians. Almost simultane- 
ously up in East Prussia the Germans started 
a drive with the idea of forcing the Russians 
back against Warsaw. North and south the 
Teutonic offensive was successful. The 
Russian line which had extended in an ap- 
proximately direct line from the border of 
East Prussia to the Carpathians was bent into 
an acute angle like a pair of partly open 
dividers with Warsaw at the point of junc- 
tion. It soon became impossible for the 
Russians to maintain their line of communi- 
cations from Warsaw to the south, and just 
as the second year of the war was beginning 
in August, 191 5, that capital was evacuated 



THE NATIONS AT WAP 




Civilians preparing to leave Warsaw as the* Germans approach 



and eagerly seized by the Germans as the 
prize of their third drive. 

The fall of Warsaw was the signal for an- 
other general Russian retreat — the third 
apparently irretrievable reverse suffered by 
the armies of that country since the beginning 
of the war. Once again East Prussia was 
swept clear of the invaders. The Carpa- 




An Austrian ski- patrol in the Carpathians 



thian passes saw their marching columns re-; 
coiling in disorder toward Russia. Gahcia 
and the fortified towns taken at such heavy 
cost were abandoned. Worse than all, the 
Germans swept triumphantly through Rus- 
sian Poland, not content with Warsaw alone, 
but seizing smaller cities and the railroads: 
which gave them control of all that part of 
Russian territory. The re- 
treat of the Russians did 
not end until their right 
flank was rested on the: 
Gulf of Riga, and the ex- 
ultation of the Germans 
did not hesitate at predict- 
ing their own speedy occu- 
pation of Petrograd. This 
high ambition, however, 
was not destined then to 
be gratified. The line the 
Russians had established 
with their right resting on 
Riga stood firm. 

The fact was that while 
Hindenburg had been suc- 
cessful in carrying posi- 
tions he had failed to de- 
stroy any considerable 
Russian army. At War- 
saw and again at Vilna the 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



83 



soldiers of the Czar slipped 
away when seemingly 
caught in the German 
trap. But paralysis seemed 
to have fallen upon them 
so far as any renewal of 
the offensive was concerned. 
Individually the Russians 
were good soldiers, long- 
suffering, dogged, brave 
and dashing. But they 
were cursed by the incapac- 
ity, cupidity, and even 
treachery of their higher 
leaders. The Czar, cousin 
of the Kaiser, had been re- 
luctantly forced into war. 
In his own household was 
a strong pro-German party 
incessantly urging upon him that he make 
a peace of his own with Germany, leaving 
his Allies in the lurch. The highest gen- 
erals were besmirched with suspicion of 
treason. After the overthrow of the throne 
one of these, General Soukhomlinoff, Min- 
ister of War, was found guilty of high trea- 
son and sentenced to imprisonment for life. 
In every branch of the army German 




A Russian priest visits the wounded near Lodz 



agents were diligently working, urging the 
advantages to Russia of a separate peace, 
and spreading the seeds of disaffection. It 
seems incredible, looking back upon condi- 
tions in the blaze of light that the revolution 
threw upon them, that there should have 
been any fight left in the Russian ranks at 
all, but nevertheless the Russian private 
long did his duty. 




Making 16,000 loaves of bread for daily consumption of (he German army 



8 4 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 




1 he lull before the storm in which delegates from the German trenches visited the Russian lines urging them to lay down their 

arms 



June I, 1916, the great Russian army- 
of not less than 1,500,000 men stepped for- 
ward unitedly in an attack upon the Ger- 
man line. That line extended from the front 
of Riga on the Baltic Sea almost directly 
south to Czernowitz in Austria-Hungary. 
The fighting was heaviest on the southern 
half of the line on which lay the cities which 
more than once had been the object of savage 



fighting, Pinsk, Dubno, and Tarnopol. Here 
the forces opposed to the Russians were 
mainly Austrians, only two out of ten army 
corps being German. The success of the 
Russians was immediate and continuous. 
The Austrian lines were rolled back day after 
day and prisoners by the thousands were 
taken. Checked for a time on the River 
Stokhod, they shifted the attack to the south 




Russian troops in a mad dash across i\o Man's Land under heavy tire. 1 he German barbed wire entanglements are seen in 

the distance 



86 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




1 1 \ UjjW J 








The Russian retreat through Galicia. With complete anarchy in the Russian army it seemed only a matter ot time when the 
Russians would lose their last hold on Austrian territory. Things of this sort were frequent along the whole Russian front 



and captured the considerable Hungarian city 
of Czernowitz. The fortresses at Dubno 
and Lutsk, which had been lost in the preced- 
ing summer, were retaken, and by the latter 
part of June it appeared that the entire Aus- 
trian line was to be swept away in one vast 
indiscriminate rout. The number of pris- 




Russian prisoners crossing the Vistula Riser 



oners taken before the end of June exceeded 
200,000. Guns, ammunition, and supplies 
of every sort were a rich prize to the Russians 
who without manufactures of their own found 
every captured cannon precious booty. Be- 
fore the 1st of July the crests of the Car- 
pathians saw again the standards of Russian 
regiments of which they had been 
cleared a year before. 

A correspondent of the London 
Times accompanied General Brus- 
silov's columns on their successful 
drive into the province of Buko- 
vina. He declared the Russian 
spirit and dash to be almost in- 
credible. At various points they 
were fighting against odds some- 
times of three to one. By direc- 
tion of their officers they were 
sparing of their munitions. The 
new Russian rifle was equipped 
with a thirty-inch bayonet fixed 
to the muzzle of the weapon and 
never taken off. With this in the 
main they charged their enemy 
and drove him from his trenches. 
Many military authorities have 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



87 




Cossacks entering the captured fortress of Przemysl. For the second time the fortress changed hands. This fortress has 
suffered the terrific bombardment of the heavy German guns and is practically one mass of ruins 



given expression to their appreciation of the 
extraordinary gallantry of the Russian in- 
fantry. They had to go against trenches and 
barbedwire entanglements without the aid of 







© Underwood & Underwood 

Big guns used by the Germans to recapture Przemysl 



the heavy artillery preparation which always 
preceded such an attack in the western theatre 
of war. None the less the Russian peasant, 
dull and uncomprehending as he is supposed 
to be, responded even cheerfully 
£S to the appeals of his officers and 
with almost Oriental fatalism 
rushed into the face of apparent 
certain death until victory was 
assured. That Russia exceeded 
any of the other belligerents, per- 
haps any two combined, in the 
number of men capable of bearing 
arms was known at the beginning 
of the war. But that in so brief 
a space of time these farmers and 
peasants could be drilled and dis- 
ciplined until they formed a co- 
herent fighting force with the 
quality of veterans amazed the 
military world. 

"The only thing," said a Ger- 
man officer once speaking of 
the Russian soldiers in attack, 
"you can do is to slaughter them 



88 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



89 




Russian troops from the first lint trenches retreating under shell tire 



and pray that you will have ammunition 
enough to keep it up." Wartime observers 
speaking of the Russian soldier seem always 
to treat of him in the mass. They lay stress 
on the individual resourcefulness and dogged 
pertinacity of the English "Tommy." The 
French "poilu" they find gay, gallant, dash- 
ing in bravery though with a lack of perti- 
nacity. The Italian manifests great ferocity 
but is easily discouraged. The German will 
go anywhere his officers will lead him — but 
he must be led. Discipline has driven indi- 
vidual initiative out of the German head. 
But when the first-hand observers come to 
speak of the Russians, they tell of their 
bovine patience and fatalism but lay chief 



stress upon their infinitude of numbers, 
their slow-moving, terrifying, irresistible 
mass. The French leap to the charge like 
an avalanche. The Russians advance like a 
resistless glacier. You think of them in lines 
ten or twelve deep, line after line, and all with 
the fearlessness that fatalism alone breeds. 
All the way from Riga to the Roumanian 
line this remorseless pressure was being ap- 
plied to the Teutonic lines. It was most 
savage in the south where the troops of 
General Brussilov were in contact with the 
Austrians. There could at this time be no 
reenforcement of the troops of Francis 
Joseph from the German lines, for in the 
north Kuropatkin was pressing hotly on 




Russian first line troops retreating from the advancing Germans. They had to fight their way back over the second line 

• trenches 



uo 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




d & Underwood 



grizzled old Von Hindenburg, who stood 
savagely at bay while the population of 
Berlin was childishly driving nails into his 
wooden effigy in token of admiration for his 
indomitable will — a real man of blood and 
iron this, best worthy of that title in Prussia 
since Bismarck. Nor could there be any 
thought of sending German regiments from 
France to the hard-pressed Austrians. There 
Verdun was holding the Teutonic foe in play 
with a vengeance. Of little strategic value 
in itself, this French fortress had enlisted 
the bloody efforts of France and Germany 
in a struggle which had already endured for 
months, and in fact outlasted the second year 
of the war. Its reduction and its defense 
had become a matter of pride, a fetish, a 
religious obsession almost to the two warring 
foes. "If we take Verdun we win the war," 
said the Germans, though no military strate- 
gist has been able to point out the reason 
for such a belief. "They shall not pass!" 
was the French cry when the assault on 
Verdun was mentioned, and the French made 
their contention good. Moreover, they held 
so many ot the Teutons in the salient of 
St. Mihiel and the hills about Verdun that 



the endangered Austrians cried in vain for 
aid from that section. It was becoming 
apparent to the onlooking world that at last 
the Allied campaign was being urged offen- 
sively along all the fronts at once as though 
directed by a single master mind. 

It was, indeed, in the very course of per- 
fecting that coherence of action among the 
Allies that Great Britain lost her greatest 
military figure of modern times, Field Mar- 
shal Lord Horatio Herbert Kitchener, British 
Secretary for War, " K-of K." as the man in 
the street loved to call him in abbreviation of 
his earlier title, Lord Kitchener of Khartoum. 
It was illustrative of the far-spread nature of 
this war that this soldier whose fame had 
been won in South Africa should meet death 
in the icy seas off the Orkneys while en route 
for Petrograd to consult about Russian oper- 
ations in Poland and Galicia. His ship, the 
British cruiser Hampshire, struck a mine 
June 5th, and went down with all on board 
except a warrant officer and eleven seamen, 
who were picked up later on a raft nearly 
dead from exposure. Of the precise manner 
of Lord Kitchener's death nothing is known 
nor was his body ever recovered. 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



9i 



More than any man in England at the 
outset of the war, Kitchener foresaw its 
proportions and duration. Three years he 
thought would be its least duration, and, be- 
ing entrusted with budding up the British 
army, he built it with a view to a long-drawn 
struggle. The impatient public, and a part 
of the press, attacked him vehemently for 
deliberation, for stubbornly refusing to rush 
half-trained troops to the front, for putting 
solid organization and adequate equipment 
ahead of action in the field. But he beat 
down opposition and attack and before his 
death saw his policy on the threshold of 
success and already commanding universal 
approval. It was, doubtless, a tribute to his 
influence, not only in Britain but in all the 
Allied countries, that the plan of joint and 
simultaneous offensive by all the powers 
which he had started for Petrograd to urge, 
was followed vigorously after his death. 

In the two months of the Russian drive 
that preceded the second anniversary of 
the outbreak of the war, the forces of the 
Czar carried all before them along that 
section of the line which was selected for 
an advance. General Brussilov had been a 



cavalry leader in the earlier days of service, 
and in pushing back the Teutons in this 
campaign brought that arm of the service 
into active play, almost for the first time in 
this war which had been fought mainly by 
artillery and infantry. His movements were 
swift and unexpected. He employed to the 
fullest the now established tactics of first 
overwhelming his enemy's trenches with 
floods of shell and shrapnel. The volume 
and steady continuation of his artillery fire 
told convincingly of the Russian recognition 
of their blunder of the year before when 
they tried to carry this same territory with 
an insufficient supply of ammunition. But 
he followed his artillery attack not only with 
infantry assaults, but with cavalry raids 
that turned his enemy's flanks, menaced his 
communications, and left to his shattered 
legions no time for rest or for repairs. The 
extended field wherein Brussilov commanded 
was as full of change as a kaleidoscope. It 
was the very antithesis of the area of battle 
in France and in Flanders. 

The Austrian provinces which felt most 
heavily the force of the Russian rally and 
advance are known as Galicia and Bukovina. 




A German shell is seen exploding just in front of the Russian trench at the opening ot the bombardment. All the men have 
ducked their heads and for hours the trench was subjected to a terrific shell fire 



92 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




© Brown & Dawson 
The Germans have quite a problem in caring for their numerous prisoners of war. They are seen here carting wagon loads 

of bread to the prisoners 

Virtually they are a single geographical re- flee through the steep and narrow Carpa- 

gion cut oft" from the rest of Austria and Hun- thian passes pursued by Cossacks, but in 

gary by the high walls of the Carpathian the end they determined to surrender and 

Mountains. Their population contains join the rapidly growing colony of captive 

many Slavs, Czechs, Poles, and Cervaks, Austrians within the Russian lines. It is in- 

and it was a significant fact that among the teresting, by the way, to note that, including 

prisoners taken by the Russians were very this garrison of Czernowitz, the forces under 



few of these nationalities. The reason for 
their absence seems to have been that be- 
cause of their manifest sympathy tor their 
brother Slavs in the Russian 
armies, they were sent away 
from that battle front as un- 
trustworthy. The troops of 
which they formed a great 
part were employed on the 
Italian front, because between 
them and the Italians was no 
racial sympathy. 

Czernowitz, the capital of 
Bukovina, fell into Russian 
occupation June 16, 1916. 
Though a considerable citv it 
is singularly isolated from the 
world beyond the Carpathians, 
being reached by a single rail- 
road only. This railroad the 
Russians cut early in the siege, 
not only isolating the city, 
but cutting off the only prac- 
tical line of retreat for its de- 
fenders. They might indeed 



General Brussilov took during their nine 
weeks' campaign in Galicia and Bukovina 
358,000 officers and men, 405 cannon, 1,326 




The Russian Field Headquarters in Poland goes up in smoke after the Germans have 
determined the correct range 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



93 




Russian troops breaking through the barbed wire m their rush for the rear 



machine guns, and a vast amount of other 
material of war. 

After the fall of Czernowitz Russian prog- 
ress in that section of Hungary was un- 
checked. The River Pruth was crossed with 
the Austrians flying in dismay. Kolomea, a 
notable railroad centre, was taken. Kuro- 
patkin in the north was pushing back Von 
Hindenburg as successfully as Brussilov in 
the south. Yet it was the successes of the 
latter that rendered possible the advance of 
the former, for the whole Teutonic line, 



extending from north to south, rested like a 
balanced pole upon the Austrian armies in 
Galicia. As fast as Brussilov pushed back 
the latter, or weakened them by his constant 
attacks, the pole would necessarily be drawn 
to the westward lest it fall altogether. When 
the second year of the war ended the Russians 
were once more within striking distance of 
Lemberg, an Austrian city of enormous stra- 
tegical value, from which they had been 
driven a year before. 

Austria was now in a dire state. The terri- 
tory she had lost was not 
material to the progress of the 
war, but her losses in men and 
material threatened her with 
complete collapse. Her own 
reserves were exhausted. Her 
military authorities in June 
vainly appealed to the govern- 
ment for authority to call 
into active service men of the 
class between fifty-six and 
sixty years of age. She could 
hope nothing more from Ger- 
many, at the moment, for by 
this time the great Allied offen- 
sive on the western front had 
begun and the Germans were 
even checking their attack on 
Verdun to meet this new 
menace. In the south Austria 
had to meet the steady press- 
Russian troops with a wagon load of supplies which have slipped off the road ure 01 the Italians, Who, long 




94 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 







Russian t roups h 



the open. Not .ill ti 



ighting ti 



,k placi ui 



ip, 



held in check by the precipitous barrier of 
the Dolomites, had by this time learned to 
negotiate those mountain passes and were 
threatening Gorizia, the gate to Trieste. 

Never in the course of the war had the 
outlook been so black for the Dual Monarchy 
and for the Teutonic alliance as then. There 
were constant rumors that Hungary would 
split away from Austria, dismember the 
Dual Monarchy, and sue for a separate and 
independent peace. Again it was suggested 



sue 




A stretch of battlefield on a drizzly morning. Beyond the figure of the man who has plant- 
ed his bayonet beside him, lie bodies ol men, some sleeping, possibly some wounded and 
some killed 



tinue the conflict. Both rumors were scouted 
at both Vienna and Berlin, and the year ended 
without either being given substance. But 
the situation was unquestionably one of the 
gravest import to the Central Powers. With 
all her wonderful sacrifices of treasure and of 
men Imperial Germany could not always go 
on upholding weak and inefficient allies. 
But for military commanders, and tens of 
thousands of men sent into Galicia, Austria 
would have been crippled by the first Russian 
ated bv the second. But 
; resourcefulness and self- 
sacrifice of the German 
nation did not seem able 
to keep this record up 
long. 

The persistency with 
which the Russians re- 
turned to the attack 
after two great and far 
reaching defeats caused 
the admiration of all 
the military world. Not 
the officers alone, but 
the troops in the ranks 
manifested this con- 
stant aversion to any 
admission of defeat. On 
the retreat from War- 
saw the correspondent 
of the London Times 
thought to test the fight- 
ing spirit of all of the re- 
treating Russian sol- 
diers. He describes the 
interview thus: 



THE NATIONS Al WAR 



95 



i 




Behind the long lines of barbed wire the Russians keep up a steady though not concentrated attack 



At one point in the road I stopped the motor to talk 
with the soldiers of the ["flirty-fifth Corps, the last unit 
of which had just crossed the river that morning and 
had been badly dusted. The colonel of the regiment 
was sitting on his horse in the middle of a field with 
notebook in hand checking up his losses. The soldiers 
of his command were lying along the grassy bank by 
the roadside, many of them falling asleep the moment 
they sat down. A field kitchen was halted in the 
roadway, and the few soldiers that were not asleep 
were lining up to get what was perhaps their first 
ration since the night before. Many were in bloody 
bandages and all worn and haggard. "Here," I 
thought, "one will find 
the morale of the Rus- 
sians at its lowest ebb. 
These men have been 
fighting for days and 
have lost." So I called 
up a great strapping 
private soldier. Weari- 
ly he got to his feet 
and came over to the 
side of the motor. His 
face was gray with 
fatigue and his eyes 
glassy for want of rest. 
"How do vou feel now 



stances. For a long time the tired soldier looked at me, 
and then for the second time he said: "I am very tired. 
We are all very tired." "Well, then," I said, "do you 
want to make peace and leave theGermans in possession 
of Warsaw ? " For a long time he stood in the hot after- 
noon sun looking at the dust in the road and then re- 
plied: "I am very tired. So are we all. The Germans 
are taking Warsaw to-day. This is not as it should be. 
I think I am a better soldier than the German. With 
rifles and shells we can always beat him. It is not 
right that we should give up Warsaw." He paused 
for a moment and then looked up with his eyes flashing 
as he finished in one quick burst: "Never! I am tired, 



about the war? 


' I 


asked him. " Do 


vou 


want peace?" 


"He 



looked at me in a dazed 
kind of way and replied 
as he shuffled his feet 
uneasily: "We are all 
very tired." "But, 
still, what do you want 
to do about the war?" 
I persisted. The Rus- 
sians are not quick to 
reply to questions 
under anv circum- 






Over the top these four soldiers leaped ahead of the others. 

takes nerve 



This sort of a charge forward 



9 6 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 







o 
^6 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



97 



but I want to go back and fight some 
more. We cannot leave the Germans in 
Warsaw." 

In the light of knowledge, 
gained later, of Russia's internal 
condition and the progress of 
German intrigue among her ruling 
classes, what was accomplished bv 
her armies in the first two years 
of war seems extraordinary. In 
September, 1916, her armies were 
on the offensive along the greater 
part of her line. Even south of 
the Dardanelles, in Asia Minor, 
they were pushing lustily along 
west of Erzeroum with the in- 
tent of effecting a juncture with 
the British in Mesopotamia. It 
seemed as if new life had come 
with the loss of Warsaw, and the 
accession of General Brussilov 
to supreme command. Roumania had just 
entered the war, and the Brussilov drive was 
construed as an honest effort to help her 
in her campaign, which we shall see later 
ended most disastrously. But here again 
the sinister undercurrent of treachery which 
seemed to accompany Russia's most hercu- 
lean efforts in the field appeared and nullified 
the heroic work of her armies. For it is no 




Wounded Russian prisoners marching into the courtyard of a German hospital 



of vitality in the Russian operations in Galicia 
and Bukowina became apparent. The dash 
and vigor of the summer months were gone. 
A check meant long inactivity. A defeat, how- 
ever insignificant, was followed by a retreat. 
Persons capable of following intelligently the 
course of Russian affairs turned from the 
generals in the field to the politicians at 
Petrograd for the explanation. 



It was evi- 
exaggeration to say that not one promise of dent there that a ferment was under way 
support that Russia made to Roumania, and that threatened the life of the government, 
by which that nation was induced to declare Sazonoff, Foreign Minister and a staunch 
war at a moment regarded by the Allies as friend to the Allied cause, resigned as a protest 
most unpropitious, was ever kept. 
But superficially there was no 
sign of Russian disaffection. Her 
armies in Galicia pushed on to 
the westward irresistibly. In 
alarm the Germans sent the in- 
domitable Von Hindenburg to 
the aid of their Austrian allies. 
In ten weeks' time, up to August 
1 2th, the Austro-Germans lost to 
the Russians 7,757 officers and 
350,000 men, beside 405 guns, 
1,326 machine guns, 388 bomb 
throwers and 292 caissons. It 
is a curious reflection that the 
nation which was able then to 
inflict such loss upon a powerful 
enemy was in fact so close to 
disintegration that six months 

later it Could not suppress a riot A she i ter on the Carpathian slopes with accommodation for 25 men, the 

in tne Streets Or Its own capital. building hidden in the snow, boasting a fireplace with a chimney shaft rising 
In October, 1916, a marked lack like a periscope of a submarine 




9 8 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



against the effort of Boris Sturmer the Pre- 
mier to repress certain organizations which 
had been active, indeed almost dominant in 
pushing the war. To the amazement of the 
people Sturmer elected to take the post thus 
vacated, though he was German by descent 
and pro-German in sympathy. Almost at 
once one A. D. Protopopoff was appointed 
Minister of the Interior — a politician who 
when sent on a mission to the Western powers 
had been detected in secret conference with 
a German emissary. These efforts to give 



Czar of All the Russias and the women of his 
household reads like the wildest flights of 
sensational romance. So dominant did it 
become, and so notorious, that the people 
murmured, and satirists and cartoonists 
ridiculed the weakness of a monarch who could 
be made the pliant tool of a charlatan, who 
cloaked nefarious purposes under the guise of 
religion. In the end the monk was lured to a 
midnight feast by the promise of the presence 
of a bevy of beautiful women. 1 here he was 
shot and his body dropped through a hole 








Russian troops throw down their arms and surrender to the Germans 



a pro-German character to the government 
enraged the people, who had been suffering 
cruel privations because of the war. Suspi- 
cion of their rulers and resentment for the 
inefficiency of those charged with regulating 
the food supplies created a condition border- 
ing closely upon revolt. Many incidents 
gave public expression to the seething pas- 
sions of revolt which were boiling beneath 
the surface. One of these was the assassina- 
tion of the monk Rasputin — an uncouth 
mystic who had managed to gain a mental 
ascendancy over the Czar and members of 
his family, and was using it to further the 
ends of German intrigue. 

The story of the influence of this monk, 
untutored and unkempt as he was, over the 



cut in the ice of the Neva. The Czar's bit- 
ter rage and grief on hearing the news did him 
no good in the eyes of the nation. In the 
early spring of 1917 this undercurrent of 
discontent and revolt broke out in open 
revolution, the story of which will be told in 
another chapter. 

That the revolution for which Russia had 
been planning and plotting for half a century, 
and with which the whole civilized world 
sympathized, should have been accomplished 
at this particular moment was one of the 
bitterest ironies of fate. 

None the less the world cheered on the 
Russian revolt. It had been but too clear 
that the Czar, or his trusted advisers, were 
at the moment planning either a separate 




First aid being tendered by the Red Cross to the wounded on the battlefield 



IOO 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Russian intantrv anil civilians evacuating Przemysl 



peace or the deliberate betrayal of their 
allies into the hands of the Teutonic enemy. 
The great, valorous armies of Russia were 
hamstrung, crippled, reduced to impotence, 
by treachery in high places. They had 
fought glorious campaigns, won magnificent 
victories, only to be robbed of the fruits 
of their fighting by criminal or treacher- 
ous inefficiency on the part of their com- 
manders. Had the French spirit dominated 
the High Command of Russia the war 



would have been won in the first six months. 
So the world, which has long looked with 
disfavor upon the House of Romanoff, greeted 
its overthrow with applause, and awaited 
the outcome of the revolution with hope, if 
not with confidence. Nothing, it was felt, 
could be worse than the regime that had 
been overthrown with its vacillating Czar, 
its German Czarina, its Court honeycombed 
with German sympathies, its Grand Dukes and 
powerful generals hungry for German gold. 




German troops under General von Hindenburg on the march toward Warsaw 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



IOI 




Miles and miles ot supplies being transported in wagons winding their way over the Polish plains near Suwalki 



The world recalled how the revolutionists 
of 1793 had fought for France, driven back 
the armies of jealous nations from her bor- 
ders, and under a leader sprung from the 
ranks carried the tri-color and the Mar- 
sellaise all over Europe. Might not 
the Russian revolutionaries do as much ? 
for a high ideal is the most stimulating 
of calls to valor. Why should not the 
armies of the Russian republic set the 
seal of final accomplishment on the task 



of making the world safe for democracy? 
Perhaps it is still too early to answer the 
question, though for the time Russia, torn 
by rival factions, rent by German intrigue, 
demoralized and disorganized by clamorous 
claimants for power, seems powerless for 
concerted action — a very derelict on the 
stormy sea of Europe. How her affairs have 
come to this seeming impasse will be told 
in the subsequent chapter on the Russian 
Revolution. 




Russian troops evacuating Warsaw before the advance of the Germans 



CHAPTER IV 



THE PAN-GERMAN PLAN — THE KAISER S DIPLOMATIC PILGRIMAGE — THE 

"GOEBEN" AND "BRESLAU " TURKEY IN THE WAR — THE HESITATION OF 

GREECE — THE CRUSHING OF SERBIA — ROUMANIAN OVERTHROW THE DAR- 
DANELLES ARMENIA AND MESOPOTAMIA — FALL OF BAGDAD AND JERUSALEM 




IE war had been in full prog- 
for more than a year be- 
one of the chief reasons 
instigation by Germany 
ecame apparent to the 
eneral consciousness of the 
Id. To students of 
Id politics, and to the 
ery few who had critic- 
lly observed the course 
f German diplomacy 
under Kaiser Wilhelm 
he goal of the Pan- 
German policy was 
apparent and the 
conception of a 
"Mittel-Europa" 
extending from 
Hamburg — or more 
probably from Ant- 
werp — to the Per- 
* sian Gulf, and all 
under Hohenzollern domination, was suffi- 
ciently defined even before the war. But few 
men, of whatever nation, had dreamed that 
what the Kaiser sought was to make all 
middle Europe a Teutonic state, and extend 
its territory and power down through Asia 
Minor and Mesopotamia to the Persian Gulf. 
Such a monstrous creation would cut off Rus- 
sia from all western Europe; would imperil 
the Indian Empire of Great Britain, would 
keep France in perpetual peril of annihilation 
and involved as a matter of course the sub- 
jugation to German rule of Belgium and per- 
haps Holland. 

As the German programme in the east was 
unfolded in the course of the war it made 
clear the serious purpose of certain spectacu- 
lar journeys made into that section by the 
Kaiser in earlier days. When in 191 5 the 
armies of the Allies found the Turkish armies 
officered by Germans and armed by Krupp's 
they understood the real purpose of the 



Kaiser's visit to and fraternization with 
Abdul Hamid— "Abdul the Damned"— in 
1889. After that visit German influence 
rapidly became dominant in Turkey. Ger- 
man banks aided in financing the totter- 
ing Ottoman Empire. German capitalists 
secured concessions for railways — particu- 
larly the one pushing south to Bagdad 
and the Persian Gulf, thus menacing British 
control of the route to India. German 
colonies were established in Syria and Asia 
Minor. Turkish families were encouraged 
to send their sons to Germany for military 
and diplomatic education, and General von 
der Goltz was sent to Turkey to rebuild its 
army on the German model. When Abdul 
Hamid was overthrown and exiled by the 
"Young Turks" it was discovered that his 
"great and good friend" the Kaiser was not 
without complicity in the revolt that de- 
throned him, and dominated to a notable 
degree the government set up in his place. 

In 1898 the Kaiser made a spectacular 
pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In all save the 
very modern fact that its details were ar- 
ranged by the tourist agency of Cook, the 
journey aped a true mediaeval pilgrimage. 
The Kaiser and his entourage were garbed 
in flowing oriental robes, rode on camels, 
slept at night on piles of oriental rugs under 
the tents of the clansmen of the desert and 
left nothing undone to make the Arab sheiks 
and kalifas regard them as true Mussulmans. 
The region was under the suzerainty of the 
Sultan, but the loyalty of the local chieftains 
was ot the slenderest. The astute Kaiser, 
having won the potentate at Yildiz Palace, 
was not above employing the arts of diplo- 
macy to ingratiate himself also with the half- 
independent chieftains of the desert. His 
portraits, taken in full Turkish costume 
brandishing a scimitar, were widely distribut- 
ed among them and the story was told that 
he and the entire German nation had become 



i°4 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Provisions tor the 1 urkish army waiting to be transported to the front 



Underwood & Underwood 



converts to Islam and, in conjunction with 
his brother, the Sultan, would presently wage 
a holy war for the establishment of the true 
faith of Mohammed throughout the world, 
and for the eternal confusion of the Christian 
dogs. The immediate effect of these bland- 
ishments was the concession for the Bagdad 
railway extending from the Dardanelles to 
the Persian Gulf. 

To visualize clearly the full significance of 
the Pan-German vision the reader may study 
the map on page 115. The most serious fact 
about that presentment is that it no longer 
stands for a vision — it records 
a fact accomplished save for 
the barrier built at Bagdad 
and Jerusalem by the British. 
Germany already has Belgium 
with the admirable North 
Sea harbor of Antwerp. The 
German Empire extends 
thence to the Austrian bor- 
der. Austria, once the ally 
of Germany, has become by 
the vicissitudes of war her 
ab]ect vassal. Not only have 
her financial burdens been 
met by German loans, but 
she is indebted to-day to the 
German arms for her national 
existence. Italy once, and 
Russia more than once, have 
had Austria beaten to her 
knees only to witness her 
rescue by the superior forces Allied troops 



of the Kaiser. After the war — should victory 
crown the Teutonic arms — the relations of 
Austria to her saviour will be those of a 
thinly disguised vassalage. Turkey, for 
almost identical reasons, is in the same 
position. 

But the road from Austria southward re- 
quired fighting to open. Serbia, racially in- 
clined to friendship with Russia, was not 
friendly to the Pan-German idea. She had 
no idea of being a mere highway for the 
southward march of Teutonic ambitions and 
domination. It was this fundamental an- 




sleeping in the trenches alter an attack near Monastu 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



105 




4* 



0m. m 





Land digging a well in mid desert 



i 



tagonism that led to Austria's savage assault 
and the world war. Between Serbia and 
Turkey — the latter already assured to the 
German cause — lay Bulgaria, and German 
diplomacy triumphing over that of Great 
Britain, secured the accession of that nation, 
with its army of 600,000 men, to the Central 
Alliance late in 191 5. Roumania held off 
until August, 1916, when she cast her lot with 
the Entente Allies, only to find herself 
basely betrayed by Russia, and utter y de- 
serted by Erance and England. She fe 1 a 
swift victim to Bulgarian and German wrath. 
The story of the operations in the Balkans 
is apt to be both drv and per- 
plexing to the American 
reader. Our knowledge ot 
those countries is slight, our 
material interest in and rela- 
tions with them almost neg- 
ligible. They do in fact lag 
behind in civilization, but 
American indifference ascribes 
to them a degree of backward- 
ness not justified by condi- 
tions. We seldom think of 
Roumania as possessing in its 
capital, Bucharest, a city of 
more than 300,000 people and 
of almost Parisian gaiety, or 
of Bulgaria as having in Sofia 
a town of more than 100,000 
inhabitants. The American 
idea of the Balkans is derived 
mainly from fragmentary re- 
ports of their incessant wars, 



and dismisses them as a turbulent group of 
mountain states, narrowly removed from 
anarchy and remote geographically and ma- 
terially from civilization. In fact their wars 
have mostly been fomented by intrigue from 
the outside, while their people respond 
promptly to civilizing influences in their in- 
frequent periods of peace. 

In this war Serbia was first of the Balkan 
states to suffer as she furnished the pretext 
upon which Germany based her Pan-German 
march. But she bore herself with unexcelled 
valor in the attacks made upon her by vastly 




British tioops marching through the historic city ot B 



io6 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 





French artillery passing a Greek cavalry regiment. The Irene 
assistance of Serbia when she was assailed by 

superior forces, beat back the Austnans twice, 
and only submitted to defeat when the seem- 
ingly illimitable resources of Germany were 
thrown into the conflict against her. In the 
first months of the war she utterly routed 
four Austrian army corps on the banks of 
the Jedar. Belgrade was bombarded and 
taken by the Austrians, but later retaken by 
the Serbs, who drove the Austrian defenders 
in frantic rout back across the frontier. 
The first months of the war indeed were 




This battery during the battle of Douze-cent-Douze was 
hitched up and on its way to a new position in 12. minutes 



i were the first of Allied troops to land at Sa 
Germany, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria 

full of glory for Serbia. But her downfall 
was inevitable. She controlled the direct 
highway to the Dardanelles, and was the 
chief obstacle to the Pan-German programme 
which the Kaiser secretly cherished. But 
so effectively had she defended herself 
against the Austrians that for fully a year 
she was left in peace. During that twelve- 
month Germany and Great Britain matched 
their wits in the tortuous game of Balkan 
diplomacy — with the results decidedly in 
favor of the former. 

In this game the first reverse to be sus- 
tained by the Allies was in the case of Turkey, 
the action of whose government became so 
strongly pro-German as to leave them no 
choice but to declare war on November 5th. 
It was, however, admitted from the outset 
that at the moment the Kaiser so desired 
Turkey would be found allied with the Teu- 
tonic combination. 

Early in August there had been a curious 
incident which intensified this conviction. 
Two German ships of war, the Goeben and the 
Breslan, the former a powerful modern battle 
cruiser, were apparently trapped by a superior 
British fleet in the harbor of Genoa. To the 
amazement of the naval world they steamed 
boldly out of that harbor and without attack 
from the British made their way around the 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



107 



end of the Italian peninsula and into the 
Dardanelles. It was discovered later that 
they had in some way obtained possession or 
the secret code of British naval signals and 
had tricked the British commander, Admiral 
Troubridge, by its use. But even so, the 
British fleet pursuing them had every reason 
to believe that the blunder could be rectified. 
At the time the Germans took refuge in the 
Dardanelles Turkey was still at peace with all 
belligerent nations. Under international law 
it was the duty of Turkey to compel the bel- 
ligerent ships taking sanctuary in her waters 
to leave them within twenty-four hours, but 
day followed day without action until on the 
13th of August the German cruisers displayed 
the Turkish flag and announcement was made 
that they had been purchased by Turkey. 
Such a purchase was in itself a gross breach of 
neutrality and Great Britain made a deter- 
mined protest. But the diplomatic corre- 
spondence on the subject prolonged by the 
proverbial procrastination of the Turks 
dragged on for weeks until it was forgotten 
:n the declaration of war. 

The fighting force brought into the field 
against the Allies by this conclusion was one 
not to be scorned. The world has looked 
contemptuously upon the Turk in industry, 
progress, and his relations to modern thought, 
but no one of general information ever ques- 
tioned his fighting ability. At the moment 
that the European war broke out the Turks 
were all veterans. They had been fighting 




French troops entering Monastu utter defeating the Bul- 
garians 

steadily in the Balkans for years. They are 
fatalists in character and heedless of life in 
their struggles against even superior forces. 
At this moment, moreover, they had been 
subjected as never before to the rigid disci- 
pline of a modern army under German lead- 
ers. They had always known how to fight, 
but had not known how to get the greatest ad- 
vantages out of cooperation and how to care 
for themselves in camp and field. The Ger- 
mans, too, had equipped them with the most 
modern arms and munitions. Accordingly 
the Turks brought to the Teutonic allies 
immediately an effective force of more than 
a million men, with the reserve power 





A? 



British troops coming up to the front in the Balkans 



io8 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN IN ASIA MINOR 
After the capture of Erzerum the Russian forces pushed on in three columns, one toward Trebizond, the second toward Er- 
zingan and Sivas, where the main Turkish army had its base, and the third column southward to Mush and Bitlis. The capture 
of Erzerum and the advance into Asia Minor enabled the Russians to capture Kermanshah, in Persia, and to turn westward 
toward Bagdad, with the aim of cooperating with the British in Mesopotamia. 



which inheres in a nation of 17,000,000 
people. 

It became apparent immediately upon the 
declaration of war by Turkey that, at German 
incentive, the Suez Canal would be the im- 
mediate objective of the Turkish armies. 
Troops were instantly sent into Asia Minor, 
and the tribesmen of that territory under the 
suzerainty of the Sultan were encouraged to 
put their armies into the field and attack the 
infidels at every point. The prolonged and 








^ 



View of the landing camp pitched by the Allies at the Dardanelles 



savage fighting in Asia Minor, in Persia, 
and the Sinai Peninsula cannot be described 
in any detail here. Only once was the canal 
put in serious jeopardy. The efforts of the 
Porte to have the tribesmen declare a holy 
war were futile, and the sanguinary horrors 
of that sort of conflict were happily averted. 
The story of the fighting in Syria, Palestine, 
and the countries bordering on the Mediter- 
ranean was curiously reminiscent of the 
Hebrew scriptures with the continual refer- 
ences to places and provinces men- 
tioned in the Old Testament. 

It was long before the menace to 
the Canal was entirely removed — 
not in fact until December, 1917, 
when the British clinched the situa- 
tion by the capture of Jerusalem 
after having taken Aleppo and 
Damascus earlier. 

What Turkey did in Asia had but 
little effect on the course of the 
war, though what her troops and 
vassals did in Armenia in the way 
of wholesale rape, torture and 
murder made humanity stand 
aghast. Not one protest was ut- 
tered by Germany whose conniv- 
ance in and responsibility for the 




**• .- 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



109 



awful crimes were empha- 
sized by the presence of her 
officers at many of the most 
savage massacres. 

What Turkey did in the 
war in the Balkans may be 
left for later telling. With 
Turkey lost ; the next stake of 
diplomacy in the Balkan 
game was Bulgaria. The 
support of this state, with 
its army of about 600,000 
men, was a mere matter of 
bargain and sale. When 
Ferdinand, himself a Hohen- 
zollern, was made King of 
Bulgaria, he remarked cyn- 
ically that if, as he had 
heard, assassins flourished in 
his new realm, he was going 
to be on the side of the assas- 
sins. A like cold and calcu- 
lating spirit dominated his outlook upon the 
Great War. Although his people undoubted- 
ly at the outset favored the Allies, and even 
threatened i\ volution, he stood doggedly for 
neutrality until October, 191 5, and then went 
over to the Germans. 

In all the history of the world's diplomacy 
there has been no more complicated or per- 
plexing record than that of Greece during 
the Great War. At the end of its third 
year the Greek Government was still nom- 




in truups, carrying barbed wire up the mountain 



inally at peace with all the belligerents. 
True, an army of French, English, and Italian 
troops numbering more than 600,000 was 
encamped on Greek soil in and about Saloniki, 
and was using that point as a base for opera- 
tions against the Austrians and Bulgars in 
Serbia. Greek ports, even Athens, were 
open to the vessels of the Allies bringing 
troops and supplies to this land of dubious 
neutrality. Toward the end of the second 
year the Allies even made a successful de- 




Bulgarian troops on the march to the front 



no 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



>±*^*Jfcfc. 




ihich 



mand for the right to administer the Greek 
posts and telegraphs on the plea that they 
were being used to carry information of 
value to the Teutons. Greece yielded to 
this as to everything, though her pro-Ger- 
man King Constantine took to his bed in an 
illness that may well have been brought on 
by chagrin and pique. But the Greek Gov- 
ernment blandly declared all this to be the 
part of perfect neutrality, though they con- 
fessed that it was a benevolent neutrality to 
the Allies. Some one with a taste for re- 
search in diplomatic history discovered that 
in 1832, after a war for independence in 
which she was aided by Great Britain and 
France, the nation of Greece was established 
under the protection of those two nations and 
Russia. The Convention of London, by 
which the Kingdom of Greece had been erect- 
ed, had never been annulled, and was now in 
force. W hat more reasonable then than that 
the troops of the protecting nations should 
be hurried to Greek territory to guard it 
from invasion bv the Bulgars and Aus- 
trians who were knocking at its northern 
barriers? 

The plea served its purpose at any rate and 
saved the day for the Allies in the Balkan 
regions — so far at least as it had been saved 
to midsummer of 1916. For the situation 
had for a year been most menacing to the 
Allied interests, and only by the friendly or 
enforced cooperation of Greece could it have 
been met. That it was grave was due in 
part to the strong pro-German sympathies 



Serbian infantry 111 smashing the Bulgarian lines 

of King Constantine, and in part to the 
diplomatic and military mistakes of the 
Allies in their early dealings with the Balkan 
problem. 

Against the strength of Constantine the 
king was arrayed that of Venizelos, 'a popu- 
lar leader. Himself a Cretan, the son of a 
farm laborer, this man had so identified him- 
self with the popular cause in Greece that as 
far back as 1906 he had been made Prime 
Minister at the demand of the people. The 
pressure of the Allies upon Greece continued 
to grow during 1916. Finally, by their in- 
sistence the king was forced to demobilize his 
army, the cost of maintaining which had 
brought Greece to the verge of bankruptcy. 
At this moment he sought to deliver over to 
the Bulgarians — led by German officers — 
three forts, Rupel, Spatovo, and Dragotin, 
facing the British position at Salonika. That 
proved to be an act of rashness that brought 
affairs to a culmination. The populace of 
Athens revolted. The king fled to Larissa. 
The British instantly blocked all Greek ports, 
and the Entente Powers demanded the dis- 
missal of the existing cabinet and the appoint- 
ment of one in sympathy with their cause. 
All this was acceded to and, though the third 
year of the war ended with Greece still nom- 
inally neutral, her territory and railways were 
at the absolute disposal of the Allies who also 
assumed authority over her posts, telegraphs, 
and harbor authorities. Her king, stripped of 
all power, was an exile from his capital, and in 
midsummer of 1917 abdicated in favor of his 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



1 1 1 



son Alexander. The government was ad- 
ministered in the interest of the Allies, and 
the one thing lacking to the actual participa- 
tion of Greece in the war was that her armies 
should take the field. 

In the fall of 191 5 the Teutonic authorities 
determined to crush Serbia. Austria had 
proved unequal to the task. The Serbs, 
comparatively few as they were, had whipped 
them at every point. But for Germany to 
throw her colossal power into the scale was 
another matter. The Germans rightly con- 
cluded that for them to undertake such a 
campaign would bring into their alliance 
Bulgaria, still maintaining a hesitating neu- 
trality. Moreover, they wanted to clear the 
direct road to the Dardanelles that men and 
munitions might the more speedily be hur- 
ried to that region when theatened by the 
British. 

The Entente Allies had ample warning of 
this purpose, but their efforts to meet it be- 
gan in dissension, proceeded through slow 
stages of hesitation and delay and ended in 
disgraceful inaction. A large section of 
British political and military opinion was 
against entering upon the struggle in the 
Balkans at all. This section believed in the 
concentration of all force in France and win- 
ning the war there. On the other hand to 
neglect the Balkans would be to lose assuredly 
Bulgaria and Roumania to the Central Pow- 
ers, open the way to India to Germany, and 
make the Germanized Mittel Europa an ac- 



complished fact. France, which might have 
been expected to urge the concentration of 
military force within her invaded territory, 
urged instead action in the Balkans, and 
General Joffre visited England to urge such 
action. In the end, delay lost Bulgaria to 
the Allies, while belated action secured Rou- 
mania only to abandon her to the overpower- 
ing forces of the German and Bulgarian arms. 

Accordingly in October, igi 5, a joint 
British and French expedition was sent to 
Saloniki, a port in the northeastern corner of 
Greece, and about fifty miles south of the 
Serbian boundary line. A mere handful at 
first these troops were gradually reenforced 
until in 1916 they exceeded 300,000 and were 
put under the command of General Sarrail, 
who had initiated the defense at Verdun. 
Promptly upon landing they were rushed in- 
to Macedonia where they formed a juncture 
with the remnant of the Serbian army. 

For by the time the Saloniki expedition had 
attained proportions sufficient to make it of 
importance in war the opportunity for its 
useful employment was past. Serbia had 
been overwhelmed by the German hordes 
under Mackensen, and by the Bulgarians 
who, as soon as they saw the German forces 
actually invading Serbia, made haste to join 
the Teutonic alliance, and to declare war 
upon their ancient enemy. Early in October 
Mackensen entered Serbian territory with a 
force for which the defenders were no match. 
Because of the nature of the country reliance 




Serbian truops in the trenches holding their positions in spite of the hitter cold. 1 1 

captured from the Austrians 



tiiu tee! trench had just been 



112 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 





Feasants working on a military road near Monastir 



was placed largely upon artillery and the 
wretched Serbs were literally blown out of 
their land. While the Teutons were advanc- 
ing from the north, the Bulgars pushed in 
from the east. The Serbians, caught between 
two enemies and outnumbered at every 
point, had nothing for it but steady retreat. 
Belgrade, their capital, fell to the Teuton 
arms. Nish, their earlier capital, was taken 
by the Bulgars. Little Montenegro, with 
its army of 30,000 men, was drawn into the 
conflict on the Serbian side, but was quickly 
snuffed out like a candle by the blast of Von 
Mackensen's guns. By December 1st, prac- 
tically all of Serbia had been subdued and 
her army driven to the seashore, through 
Albania, where it rested in hope of aid from 
the Allies. That aid came belatedly in the 
form of transports and men-of-war that 
ferried the fragments of the shattered Ser- 
bian 'army to the Island of Corfu, where 
they were rested and restored to efficiency. 

The fighting in Serbia was peculiarly savage; 
the losses in proportion to numbers engaged 
very great. But the soldiers and the people 
of the ravaged district suffered cruelly from 
the plague that swept over the land after the 
armies of the Teutons and Bulgars had 
flooded it with blood. An American volun- 
teer who served in the Serbian hospitals dur- 
ing the epidemic wrote: 

1 he conditions were appalling. The number of pa- 
tients was beyond all hospital accommodation, and 
doctors and nurses were dying with their patients. 
In the Nish Hospital the patients were lying three 
and four in one bed, with one covering for the whole, 
while others lay on the floor, and even under the 
beds. At one time there were 700 patients to 200 



beds, with only two doctors, one of them a young 
Swiss, who very shortly after fell ill. 1 here were no 
sanitary arrangements. . . . 

And all the time the infection was being carried 
about by soldiers returning from the army, by peas- 
ants wandering at large, and, above all, bv the trav- 
elers on the railways. The trains were crowded with 
all sorts of people — peasants in filthy clothes, rags, 
and goatskins, wandering aimlessly along corridors, 
looking in vain for accommodation, and all the car- 
riages reeking of naphthalene. 

In time it may be known, approximately, 
it can never be known certainly, whether 
weapons of war or disease claimed the more 
victims in Serbia. In July, 191 5, it was esti- 
mated that more than 100,000 had perished 
of typhus and cholera. In this moment of 
dreadful agony the people of the United States 
responded nobly not only with offerings, but 
with personal service to the call of distress. 

While Serbia was undergoing her martyr- 
dom Roumania hung wavering between the 
rival applicants for her favor. The wonder is 
that when the time came for her to decide 
she should have cast in her lot with the 
Allies who had done her sister Balkan state 
so ill a turn. But Roumania had always 
stood with Russia and the Slav forces in the 
Balkans. Her people were strongly pro- 
Ally though her monarch's sympathies were 
with the House of Hohenzollern. None the 
less on August 27, 1916, Roumania declared 
war on Austria-Hungary- It was the same day 
T 'aly declared war on Germany and doubtless 
during the period of incertitude there had 
been diplomatic discussions between the two. 

The entrance of Roumania upon the war 
at this precise moment had been discouraged 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



113 



by all the Allies save Russia — who for her 
part made profuse promises of support and 
then callously broke them all. As a result 
Roumama, though embarking upon active 
hostilities with a dashing invasion of her 
enemy's territory, was almost immediately 
overwhelmed by the superior forces of her 
foes. Her army numbered about 600,000, but 
military critics declare it was badly led. 
None the less its appearance on the side of 
the Allies was hailed with an exultation that 
was doomed to be brief. Entering in August 
she was in a state of complete collapse in 
December. Her army that invaded Transyl- 
vania was driven out in shattered fragments. 
Mackensen and Falkenhayn cut through her 
troops in her own territory as the reaper cuts 
through the sighing grain. Bucharest fell, 
and the capital was moved to Jassy. For a 
time it seemed that the Roumanian army 
would be totally destroyed, but this calamity 
was averted. It was, however, broken in 
spirit and power, and after long pretence] of 
resuming hostilities the government negoti- 
ated a separate peace in March, 191 8. 

The greatest disaster which befell the 
British arms in the southeast was the failure 
of the British expedition against the Dar- 
danelles undertaken in March of 1915 and 
ending in failure in January of the year fol- 



lowing. No single campaign of the war was 
the cause of more bitter recriminations, or 
wrecked more reputations. Its inception was 
denounced — after its failure — as a blunder, 
and almost every step in its prosecution 
aroused an outcry of criticism from both pro- 
fessional and amateur strategists. But there 
was more of desperate valor than of blunder- 
ing in the campaign, more of gallant self- 
sacrifice than of self-seeking; more of British 
dogged tenacity than of the typical British 
tendency to "muddle through somehow." 

The one great blunder was in under-esti- 
mating at the outset the proportions of the 
task. Against the passage of ships, the 
narrow and tortuous straits which open the 
way from the xTgean Sea to the Sea of Mar- 
mora and thence into the Black Sea were 
mined, and lined with batteries artfully con- 
cealed among the rolling hillocks on the 
shore. German engineers had directed the 
Turks in making the land impregnable to 
attack. What they had accomplished at 
the point selected is graphically described by 
the English writer, John Masefield: 

Those who wish to imagine the scenes must think 
of twenty miles of any rough and steep sea coast known 
to them, picturing it as roadless, waterless, much 
hroken with gullies, covered with scrub, sandy, loose 
and difficult to walk on, and without more than twc 
miles of accessible landing throughout its length. 






^ 





Serbian prisoners under guard <>t their German captors in the Ihar Valley 



ii4 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



<% 









si 



Roumanian troops advancing over the Austrian border 



Let them picture this familiar twenty miles as domi- 
nated at intervals by three hills bigger than the hills 
about them, the north hill a peak, the centre a ridge 
or plateau, and the south hill a lump. Then let them 
imagine |the hills entrenched, the landing mined, the 
beaches tangled with barbed wire, ranged by howitzers 
and swept by machine guns, and themselves three 
thousand miles from home, going out before dawn, 
with rifles, packs, and water bottles, to pass the mines 
under shell fire, cut through the wire under machine 
gun fire, clamber up the hills under the fire of all arms, 
by the glare of shell-burst in the withering and crash- 
ing tumult of modern war, and then to dig themselves 
in in a waterless and burning hill while a more numer- 
ous enemy charge them with the bayonet. And let 
them imagine themselves enduring this night after 
night, day after day, without rest or solace, nor respite 
from the peril of death, seeing their friends killed, and 
their position imperilled, getting their food, their 
munitions, even their drink, from the jaws of death, 
and their breath from the taint of death, and their 
brief sleep upon the dust of death. Let them im- 
agine themselves driven mad by heat and toil and thirst 
by day, shaken by frost at midnight, weakened by dis- 
ease and broken by pestilence, yet rising on the word 
with a shout and going forward to die in exultation 
in a cause foredoomed and almost hopeless. Only 
then will they begin, even dimly, to understand what 
our seizing and holding of the landings meant. 

The original British plan had been to limit 
the attack to the navy alone and, on theiSth 
of February the vessels of the most powerful 
Allied fleet ever gathered together, headed 
by the great Queen Elizabeth, at that time 
the newest and most powerful of the British 
superdreadnoughts, delivered the attack at 
the iEgean end of the Dardanelles. The 
strait itself is about forty-two miles long, 
very tortuous in its course, and varying in 



width from one to four miles. The channel 
was of course blocked at the outset by Turk- 
ish mines. The defenses at the /Egean en- 
trance were antiquated and quite readily 
silenced by the assailants. First among the 
attacking fleet was the Queen Elizabeth, car- 
rying eight 15-inch guns in her primary bat- 
tery with a range far exceeding that of any 
ordnance mounted in the Turkish batteries, so 
that she could easily lie at a point thoroughly 
safe from any fire from the enemy, sheltered 
by intervening hills, and drop her 15-inch 
shells into the enemy's works. One of these 
shells discharged 20,000 shrapnel bullets. 
Backed by such ships as the Agamemnon, 
Irresistible, and the French Gaulois, she began 
the bombardment at a range of from 1 1 ,000 to 
12,000 yards, and in less than an hour the 
forts at Kum Kale and Sedd-el-Bahr were re- 
duced to such a degree of impotence that the 
smaller vessels could run in and finish the 
work. In this engagement the success of the 
British was so complete that they felt confi- 
dent that the conquest of the straits from 
end to end would be effected with equal ease. 
This hope, however, proved illusory. The 
Allied fleet entered the straits with the pur- 
pose of pressing through and silencing the 
forts on either side as they progressed. But 
they found that forts and batteries they sup- 
posed were silenced suddenly sprang into new 
life and poured upon them a savage and well- 
directed fire. Trawlers and destroyers had 
been sent ahead to sweep the strait of mines, 
but the battle had hardly been in progress 
two hours when the Bouvet, the largest of the 
French battleships on the scene, struck a 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



US 



mine. Sinking by the stern as she rapidly 
began to do, she attracted the attention of 
the Turkish gunners who concentrated upon 
her a fierce fire. Badly cut to pieces and 
with the operation of her machinery abruptly 
stopped, the Bouvet sank while surrounded 
by torpedo boats and destroyers striving to 
save her crew. Only a few could be rescued. 
Shortly thereafter the Irresistible, a British 
pre-dreadnought and the Ocean of the same 
class, also went down, but swift action by de- 
stroyers saved most of their personnel. The 
British had thought the Turkish tiger was 
sleeping, but it had savagely used its teeth 
and claws. 

The complete failure of the Allied fleet in 
the Dardanelles was a bitter disappointment 
to its champions, particularly to those in 
England where it had been believed that the 
British navy was equal to any task that might 
be set it. But it may be said that this war 
has demonstrated that a fleet alone can never 
be effective against land fortifications. Naval 
authorities of both allied nations insisted 
that the passage of the straits was not impos- 
sible, but coupled their insistence with the 
conclusion that such a passage would be 



valueless unless accompanied by a land force 
to take possession of the defenses which the 
ships would put out of action. 

Accordingly while the allied fleets, anchor- 
ing out of danger, continued a desultory 
bombardment of the forts, a great military 
expedition was organized in Egypt under the 
command of Sir Ian Hamilton. Fifty 
thousand men, both French and British, 
reached the Gallipoli Peninsula late in April. 

The first landing was made at a point, 
Gaba Tepe, a bay on the /Egean side of the 
peninsula away from the Dardanelles. The 
landing was begun about 3 a. m. while it was 
still dark, the men being placed in small 
boats which were towed by the battleships 
and destroyers as near to the shore as the 
draught of water would permit. About a 
half a mile from shore the boats cast off" 
and made their way toward the beach. In 
that darkest hour that precedes the dawn 
the watchers on the ships could not tell 
whether their fellows were approaching a 
deserted coast or whether in that blackness 
there lurked a powerful force of the enemy 
readv to greet them with rifle shots and 
machine guns. Suddenly they saw an alarm 




Mac showing the Turks in Asia, also the opposing forces of British and Russians and the approximate strength of each 



n6 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Australian ("Anzac"} tioups charge a 1 urkish trench near Gallipoli 



light Hash on the shore and signal for a 
moment or two, when there burst out a rapid 
hie of rifles that told to the men still on the 
ships that their comrades would have to 
fight their way to a foothold on the beach. 

Landing was a desperate business. The 
Turks had not confined their obstructions to 
the dry land, but had mined and wired the 
few beaches at which land- 
ings were practicable under 
the water, so that the boats 
were blocked many yards from 
the shore and exposed to the 
murderous fire of the land bat- 
teries. A large tramp steamer, 
the River Clyde was packed 
with troops and beached at a 
strategic point. Several light- 
ers also filled with men were 
attached to her protected side, 
the purpose being to swing 
them around so as to form a 
bridge between the ship and 
the shore. This done, great 
doors which had been cut in 
the side of the steamer 
would be thrown open and 
the troops would rush to the 
shore. How sadly the effort 
miscarried John Masefield tells 
picturesquely: 



Five picket boats, each towing five boats or launches 
full of men, steamed alongside the River Clyde and went 
ahead when she grounded. She took the ground rather 
to the right .of the little beach some four hundred yards 
from the ruins of Sedd-el-bahr Castle before the Turks 
had opened fire, but almost as she grounded, when the 
picket boats with their tows were ahead of her only 
twenty or thirty yards from the beach, every rifle and 
machine gun in the castle, the town above it, and in 




lurkisli infantry with fixed bayonets marching through the streets of Constanti- 
nople 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



117 



weight of their equipment; but some 
reached the shore, and these instant- 
ly doubled out to cut the wire en- 
tanglements and were killed, or 
dashed for the cover of a bank of 
sand or raised beach wh.ch runs 
along the curve of the bay. 1 hose 
very few who reached this covev 
were out of immediate danger, but 
they were only a handful. The 
boats were destroyed where they 
grounded. Meanwhile the men of 
the River Clyde tried to make their 
bridge of boats, by sweeping the 
lighters into position and mooring 
them between the ship and the shore. 
They were killed as they worked, 
but others took their places, the 
bridge was made, and some of the 
Munsters dashed along it from the 
ship and fell in heaps as they ran. 
J As a second company followed, the 
1 i L nch soldiers returning from a reconnoitring expedition. They have luckily moorings of the lighters broke or were 
escaped a shell which is seen bursting just behind them shot- the men leaped into the water 

were drowned or killed, 




the curved low strongly trenched lull along the bay 
began a murderous fire upon ship and boats. There 
was no question of their missing. They had their tar- 
get on the front and both flanks at ranges between one 
hundred and three hundred yards in clear daylight, 
thirty boats bunched together and crammed with men, 
and a good big ship. The first outbreak of fire made the 
Bay as white as a rapid, for the Turks fired not less 
than 10,000 shots a minute for the first few minutes 
of that attack. Those not killed in the boats at the 
first discharge jumped overboard to wade or swim 
ashore, many were killed in the water, many who were 
wounded were swept away and drowned, others trying 
to swim in the fierce current wete drowned by the 



and were arownea or killed, or 
reached the beach and were killed, or fell wounded 
there, and lay under fire getting wound after wound 
till they died; very, very few reached the sand 
bank. More brave men jumped aboard the lighters 
to remake the bridge. They were swept away or shot 
to pieces; the average life on those boats was some three 
minutes long, but they remade the bridge, and the 
third company of the Munsters doubled down to death 
along it under a storm of shrapnel which scarcely a man 
survived. The big guns in Asia were now shelling the 
River Clyde and the hell of rapid fire never paused. 
More men tried to land, headed by Brigadier-General 
Napier, who was instantly killed with nearly all of his 
followers. Then for long hours the remainder stayed 




A sector of the Allies spring drive on the Macedonian front. Serbian troops holding a temporary trench and breastwork made 

of field stone 



n8 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Mohammedan volunteers leaving Jerusalem to join the Turkish army against the British 



on board, down below in the grounded steamer while 
the shots beat on her plates with a rattling clang which 
never stopped. Her twelve machine guns fired back, 
killing any Turk who showed, but nothing could be 
done to support the few survivors of the landing who 
now lay under cover of the sand bank on the other 
side of the beach. 

The situation was hopeless, but the British 
thought to reenforce such of their troops as 
had got ashore and fight on. A new expedi- 
tion of 50,000 men was sent to the straits and 
put ashore without serious opposition at a 
point called Ari Burnu, but which the soldiers 
promptly named Anzac Bay, that name being 
derived from the initialsof thewords by which 
the troops engaged in the expedition were 
known — "Australia and New Zealand Army 
Corps." With this foothold it was hoped 
that the Turkish main force on the peninsula 
might be attacked simultaneously front and 
rear and thus overwhelmed. Admirable as 
the plan seemed it was destined to failure. 
There followed twelve days of uninterrupted 
fighting in which the losses w T ere heavier 
than at any other period of the Dardanelles 
campaign. And yet nothing came of this at all 
except the definite check of the British. The 
offensive was dropped and all military minds 
in the general staff of the Allies were concen- 
trated on the problem how to get the army, 
which by this time numbered 200,000 men or 
more, out of the peninsula. Here for the 
first time the Turks, notwithstanding their 
German leadership, showed inefficiency. 



They had been magnificent in defense. While 
it was true that they had the advantage of 
overwhelming numbers, they defended their 
country successfully against a powerful at- 
tacking force on land and a naval force of 
absolutely unprecedented strength. But now 
they let slip the game that was fairly within 
their grasp. For some reason they could 
not be led into any effective attack upon the 
British forces which were really at their 
mercy. Instead they kept up a merely 
desultory assault upon the British outposts, 
while with most admirable skill Sir Ian Ham- 
ilton gradually withdrew his forces until by 
the first week of January, 1916, all had left 
the peninsula. The French, who had held 
the Asiatic mainland, were withdrawn at 
about the same moment. 

No single operation of the great war re- 
sulted so disastrously to the Allies as the 
Dardanelles expedition. The price paid was 
a loss reported officially up to December 11, 
191 5, of 112,921 men. Moreover, there were 
up to that time 96,683 men admitted to the 
Allies' hospitals. Six battleships, one of 
them French, were lost in the course of the 
naval operations. The conditions of fighting 
were such as to break down the constitutions 
of the men. The water supply was utterly 
inadequate. All water had to be brought 
by ship, landed in water bags, and carried 
on mule back to the various camps. General 
Hamilton reported that in the battle of 
August 10th he dared not order his reserves 




RUMANIA 



Government: 



Ruler: 
Area: 

Population: 

Dale of entering the war: 
Army (war basis); 
Navy: 

Commerce with Germany 
before the war: 

Reason for entering the war: 



Constitutional monarchy 

since the year 1886 
Ferdinand I. 
54,000 square miles 
7.500.000 
Au^u.t 28, 1916 
600,000 
1 cruiser, 4 destroyers 

Exports, $32,200,000; im- 
ports, $18,170,000 (1913) 

To help Russia and thwart 
the designs of Turkey and 
Bulgaria 

Shortly after her entrance 
into the war Rumania was 
invaded by the Germans 
who now hold the greater 
part of the country. The 
capital was removed 
from Bucharest to Jassy 




PORTUGAL 



Government: 

President: 

Area: 

Population. 

Dale of entering the war" 

Army (peace basis): 

Navy: 



Commerce with Germany 
before the war: 

Greatest export: 

Reason for entering the war: 



National Wealth: 
National Debt: 



Republic 

Dr. Bernardino Machado 

36,000 square miles 

(5,000,000 

March 10, 1916 

400,000 

About: 3 dreadnoughts, 5 

cruisers, 5 destroyers, 3 

submarines 

Exports, $11,960,000; im- 
ports. $5,750,000 (1913) 
Food substances 
To maintain her treaty with 

Great Britain 
$5,000,000,000 
$1,100,000,000 




MONTENEGRO 



Government: 

Ruler: 

Area: 

Population: 

Date of entering the war: 

Army (field strength): 

Navy: 

Commerce with Germany 

before the war: 
Greatest exports: 
Reason for entering the war : 



Constitutional monarchy 

Nicholas I. 

6,000 square miles 

516,000 

August 7, 1914 

40,000 

None 

None 

Fine woods and wines 

The Montenegrins are close 
kin to the Serbs and en- 
tered the war to aid Serbia 

In 1915 the Germans in- 
vaded and captured the 
kingdom. King Nicholas 
and the Government are 
now established in France 
at Neuilly-sur-Seine 



GREECE 



Government: 

Ruler: 

Area:* 

Population: 

Date of entering the war: 

Army (peace basis; : 

Navy: 

Commerce with Germany 
before the war: 

Greatest exports: 

Reason for entering the war: 



Constitutional monarchy 
Alexander 
41,933 square miles 
4.821,000 
.June 29, 1917 
60.000 

7 pre-dread noughts, 14 de- 
stroyers, 2 submarines 

Exports, $5,520,000; im- 
ports, 5,980,000 

Raw foods, raw minerals, 
and wine 

To aid the Allies to restore 
the Balkan status quo. 

Through the efforts of the 
former ruler Constantine 
I., Greece maintained her 
neutrality until June, 
1917, when he was exiled 



120 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



into action because of their sufferings from 
thirst. 

"At Anzac," he said, "when the mules 
with water bags arrived at the front, the 
men would rush up to them in swarms just 
to lick the moisture that exuded through the 
canvas bags." At other points lighters 
carrying the water from the ships to the 
shore grounded some distance out and the 
men had to swim to them to fill their water 
bottles. 

There has seldom been so extraordinary 
an achievement as the withdrawal of the 
British force from Suvla and Anzac with 
practically no loss whatsoever. General 
Hamilton in advance estimated his probable 
casualty - 1 50 per cent.; they were in fact 
three Killed and five wounded out of more 
than 70,000 men withdrawn. The with- 
drawal was effected in two nights and con- 
ducted so quietly and with such astute 
measures for the deception of the Turks 
that the latter were lulled to security and 
hardly awakened to the fact that their enemy 
was stealing away before the entire British 
expedition was again on its ships. 

Meantime south of the Dardanelles the 
empire of the Turk was threatened from the 
east, the west and the south. The invaders 
from the east were the Russians and we may 
give our first attention to their progress. 

The primary object of the Russians was 
the capture of the town of Erzerum, in Ar- 
menia, just southeast of the Russian border. 
This ancient fortress on the Turkish road to 
India, and on the Russian road through Asia 
Minor to Constantinople, has long been a 
strategic point for which the Russians and 
Turks have struggled. Since the beginning of 
the last century this warfare has taken the 
shape of endless riot, massacre, and border 
warfare between the Christian Armenians 
and the Kurds who yield allegiance to the 
Crescent. But never have the unspeakable 
barbarities inflicted upon the Armenians by 
the Turks been so cruel, so revolting and so 
monstrous in the numbers slain, starved, 
ravished and enslaved as during this war. 
It ceased to be a story of the raiding of vil- 
lages and became a bloody record of the anni- 
hiliation of whole provinces. The Turks — 
allies of the Hohenzollern who proclaims 
himself divinely appointed of God — slaugh- 
tered Armenians by the tens of thousands, 
made women by the hundreds march naked 
in the broiling sun, drove whole communities 



into the desert to perish of exposure, hunger 
and thirst, and practically annihilated a 
nation by methods of unspeakable barbarity 
with no word of protest from their Christian 
ally! 

Scarcely had war between Russia and Tur- 
key been declared when the Russian army 
crossed the border, overran northern Persia, 
and though railroads were unavailable and 
the country most difficult to cover, pene- 
trated far into the interior. The Russian 
Grand Duke Nicholas who had suddenly 
and mysteriously disappeared from around 
Galicia, where he had been in command of 
the Russian armies during their first advance 
into that country, appeared in the Caucasus 
in the middle of February, 191 5. Erzerum, a 
Turkish stronghold, was speedily taken, and 
in the summer of 191 5 about a third of the 
Grand Duke's army at Erzerum was dis- 
patched to take Trebizond, the chief port on 
the Black Sea, while the remainder turned to 
the southward pursuing the Turks and fight- 
ing for control of the roads leading up to the 
Bagdad Railway. It was on the 16th of 
February that the chief Armenian city had 
been taken; March 2d they took the fortified 
city of Bitlis; and on the 18th of April, with 
the Black Sea fleet cooperating with them, 
the Russian land forces actually entered 
Trebizond. 

Meanwhile the British forces were fighting 
their way up the Tigris toward Bagdad and 
toward Jerusalem and Aleppo from Suez and 
the Mediterranean coast. These were the 
most important operations undertaken in 
Asia Minor and were still in successful prog- 
ress at the opening of 191 8 with both Bagdad 
and Jerusalem fallen to the British arms. 
The Euphrates and Tigris rivers, uniting in 
the Shatt-el-Arab, flow through important oil 
fields belonging to an English company. 
The war had hardly begun before the impor- 
tance of oil as a munition of war became ap- 
parent, and the British, having taken the 
port of Basra some distance up the river, 
undertook an expedition partly for the pro- 
tection of these oil fields and partly to begin 
an advance upon Bagdad which was des- 
tined to be the terminus of the German rail- 
road south from Constantinople. They were 
opposed by the Turks from the very first, but 
for eight months their successes were unin- 
terrupted. By July of 191 5 the expedition 
then under command of General Sir John 
Nixon was within striking distance of Bagdad, 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



121 



and a detachment under command of Sir 
Charles Townshend, of about 12,000 men, 
was sent ahead to capture that capital. But 
thereupon misfortune fell heavily upon them. 
The British had evidently erred as they did 
at Antwerp, and again at the Dardanelles. 
They had sent a boy to do a man's job. At- 
tacked at Ctesiphon by an overwhelming 
Turkish force the expedition was badly 
beaten and forced to retreat some sixty miles 
to a point called Kut-el-Amara. Here for 
five months it was held so closely invested 
that it could be reached only by aeroplanes. 
Early in January, 1916, a strong relief col- 
umn was sent out to its aid. But its path 
was blocked by superior forces. In the end 
the beleaguered British were forced by 
starvation and the exhaustion of all supplies 
to surrender on April 29, 1916. 

But the British nation does not take easily 
to defeat. At home there was the usual 
clamor in the press and serious discussion in 
Parliament. But at the front there was 



merely a setting of jaws, tightening of belts 
and a determination to get the city of the 
Arabian Nights yet. General Sir E. Stanley 
Maude was sent out to command in place of 
Sir John Nixon. Reinforcements and fresh 
munitions poured in. Once again the ascent 
of the river toward Bagdad was begun. It 
had taken Townshend two months to reach 
Assizeh in 191 5; in 1916 General Maude ac- 
complished the distance in three months. 
March 11, 1917 the traditional home of 
Haroun al Raschid fell to the British invader. 
In December of the same year Jerusalem was 
taken by the British under General Sir Ed- 
mund Allenby. The year thus closed with 
the British in full control in Syria, Palestine 
and Mesopotamia. But the Russians, whoce 
cooperation in Asia Minor was so essential to 
complete Allied success, held in check by 
the conditions of anarchy prevailing in Pet- 
rograd, rested on their arms and the cam- 
paign in their section was virtually aban- 
doned. 




1 l nderwood& Underwood 
Staff of Turkish officers with General Von der Goltz, who is directing operations in Turkey 







A United States destroyer starting a smoke screen as she plows at top speed through a choppy sea 



CHAPTER V 



THE NAVIES IN THE WAR — ZEAL OF THE GERMANS — BRITISH CONTROL THE SEAS 

THE END OF THE COMMERCE DESTROYERS — BATTLE OFF FALKLAND ISLANDS 

— BATTLE OFF THE BIGHT OF HELIGOLAND , WEDDIGEN's EXPLOIT BATTLE OF 

CORONEL BATTLE OFF DOGGER BANK BOMBARDMENT OF BRITISH COAST- 
WISE TOWNS BATTLE OF JUTLAND 




the astonishment of 
the world the naval 
operations of the 
Great Warwere char- 
acterized by a dead- 
lock almost as com- 
plete, and continuous 
as that of the armies 
dug-in in France and 
Belgium. All men had 
thought that the su- 
periority of the Brit- 
ish navy was so great 
that it would sweep 
the German fleet from 
the face of the wa- 
ters, while those who 
had observed the dash 
and spirit of the Ger- 
man naval personnel never anticipated the 
adoption of a policy that has left the High 
Seas Fleet practically intact after almost 
four years of war. 

Few factors in the international situation 
prior to 1914 had more to do with bringing on 
the war than the feverish activity of Germany 
in building a fleet which could only be de- 
signed to operate against that of Great 
Britain. Indeed the preamble to the Ger- 
man navy act of 1900 frankly expressed the 
purpose of that nation to build a fleet which 
could meet on no uncertain terms that of 
their neighbor beyond the North Sea. It 
seemed at the moment a futile ambition. 
England was committed to the "two power 
standard." That is to say her successive 
governments were pledged to maintain a navy 
equal in fighting force to that which any two 
powers of Europe, acting in alliance, could 
could bring against her. This standard 
which had been maintained for years Germany 
frankly challenged. Von Tirpitz, admiral of 
the German Navy, and a great man in vision 



and power even if he did commit the blunder 
of establishing the policy of ruthless sub- 
marine warfare, by which the United States 
was brought into the war as Germany's foe, 
led the fight for naval development which 
began about 1900. Germany had never been 
a seafaring nation, but a systematic agitation 
turned the thoughts of its people toward 
marine expansion both in the naval and mer- 
chant marine fields. Liberal governmental 
aid developed the enormous merchant fleets 
of the Hamburg-American and the North 
German Lloyd corporations. A Navy 
League was formed for pushing naval ex- 
pansion and soon numbered over 3,000,000 
members. The Kaiser's powerful influence 
was enlisted and, although the army always 
was first in his thoughts, he left nothing un- 
done to stimulate national enthusiasm and 
pride in the sea service. 

Great Britain was far and away first in 
naval power, and it might have been long 
before Germany could have hoped to rival 
her except for a change in naval standards 
which the British themselves effected. The 
relative strength of navies is always estimated 
in terms of their heaviest fighting ships — the 
first line of battle. Prior to the twentieth cen- 
tury these had been first-class battleships, and 
the British lead was not to be overcome. But 
with the building of the first dreadnought the 
rivals started on even terms, and when in 
1 906- '08 Great Britain discovered that while 
she had laid down the keels of eight dread- 
noughts, Germany had laid down nine, the 
Admiralty gasped, then squared their 
shoulders and began the work of navy build- 
ing at a pace never before dreamed ot. Ef- 
forts made by prudent statesmen to get both 
governments to limit construction were un- 
availing. Day and night the ship yards re- 
sounded with the clangor of the steam rivet- 
ters. Battleships were described as old when 



123 



I2 4 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Sinking ol the Falaba. I"he South Atrican liner, Falaba, was torpedoed without warning and sank so rapidly that many 

passengers had no time to take to the boats 



they had been in commission four years. 
Nothing smaller than the dreadnought with 
ten of the largest rifles was considered worth 
while, and the type soon developed into the 
superdreadnought class of 25,000 tons with 
ten 13-inch and twelve 6-inch guns and with 
an armor belt a foot thick at its point of 
greatest weight. Such a ship would carry 
more than a thousand officers and men and 
cost about $10,000,000. Of vessels of this 
type Great Britain had eleven complete and 
three nearly so in 1914; Germany had none, 
though three were under construction. Of 
the next type, the dreadnought battleship, 
Germany and England had each eighteen. 
At the outset of the war Germanv had to 



face the combined navies of Great Britain, 
Erance, Russia and Japan. Her one ally was 
Austria-Hungary. 

As naval powers in the war Japan and 
Russia may be dismissed as negligible. The 
navy of the former, indeed, is a very consid- 
erable fighting force but was mainly employed 
in guard duty in the Pacific, except for a num- 
ber of destroyers that operated against Ger- 
man submarines in the Mediterranean. The 
Russian navy had not in 1914 recovered from 
its losses in the disastrous war with Japan. 
Such fighting force as it still retained was 
cooped up in the Baltic and the Black Seas. 

Contemporary estimates of the strength 
of the British navy at the opening of the 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



125 




H. M. S. Queen Elizabeth perhaps the most famous warship 
landing ot the Allied torces She was th 

war, including two destroyers purchased from 
Chile, and two battleships building for Turkey 
which were commandeered, gives the follow- 
ing figures for the principal classes: — 

BATTLESHIPS AND BATTLE CRUISERS 

Super-dreadnought type 14 

Dreadnought type 18 

Pre-dreadnought types (1895-1908) . . 38 

Super-dreadnoughts completing ... 3 

Total 7} 

Armored cruisers (1901-1908) .... 34 

Cruisers (1890-19 14) 87 

Destroyers ( 1 893—1914) 227 

Torpedo boats ( 1 885-1908) 109 

Submarines (1904-1913) 75 



© Underwood & Underwood 
in the world, bombarding Cape Helles (Gallipolij to cover the 
: first battleship to carry fifteen-inch guns 

Auxiliary to these were innumerable lesser 
vessels such as mother ships for destroyers 
and submarines, mine layers, oil ships, repair 
and hospital ships. 

The navy with which Germany prepared to 
meet this prodigious fighting force was be- 
lieved to be the next most powerful Beet in 
the world, although it was the creation of 
only fifteen years of effort. Its High Sea 
Fleet, of whose operations we shall have much 
to say, consisted of twenty-one battleships, 
thirteen of them of the dreadnought type. 
Germany had no super-dreadnought — a seri- 
ous weakness. In this fleet there were 
furthermore four battle cruisers, eight light 
cruisers and eighty torpedo boats. The 
total German naval strength was: — 




) Underwood & Underwood 

Another victory for Kultur. 1 his Atlantic liner was torpedoed and Mink without warning. This is Germany's method of 

carrying on naval warfare. 



126 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 





THE NATIONS AT WAR 127 

where, ever entered that sea 
unless it were a few wandering 
submarines. The Teutonic 
strength in those waters was 
the navy of Austria-Hungary, 
which at the outbreak of the 
war numbered 15 battleships, 
three of them being dread- 
noughts, two armored cruisers, 
nine light cruisers, fifteen 
Nfc destroyers, 58 torpedo boats 

;. V * 3 and six submarines. This fleet 
was practically confined to the 
Adriatic and its services — 
except for its submarines, 
which were very active — were 
neither prominent nor glorious 

British battleship plowing .it high spued through a rough sea during the War. 

Everything possible had 
battleships and battle cruisers been done to instil into the minds of the Gel- 
Dreadnought tvpe 1} man officers the conviction that ship for ship 

Dreadnought type (completing) ... 3 their fleet was superior to that of Great Britain, 

Pre-dreadnought ( 1 891-1908) .... 22 and that when the time came for them to meet 

Old types (1889-1893) 8 in battle the Teutons would not come out with- 

out a lavish share of glory. Professional opin- 

Total 46 i° n in Germany could not have been ignorant 

of the fact that the British navy outclassed 
Armored cruisers (1892-1913) .... 40 their own in number of ships and in weight of 

Cruisers (1893-1910) 12 metal by almost three to one. Nevertheless 

Destroyers ( 1 889-1913) 152 every German officer was eager for war, hop- 
Torpedo boats (1887-1898) 45 ing that its chances might get him at least 

Submarines 40 into a battle in which the opposing fleets 

would be nearly enough equal to give him a 
Cooperating with the British navy, and chance of victory. Night after night in Ger- 
assuming entire responsibility for guarding man wardrooms and at naval banquets at 
the Mediterranean, was the 

navy of France. It possessed g gjjnm^^^^- '^ V \'W 

at the opening of the war ||^ *' U ? <^f 

twenty-four battleships, 111- ^"fl^BI 

eluding ti n Light, an HMh£J?L 

ing her very considerable •*•»■' ^ Ti r \ d% <* a 

fleet to the Allies' aid. Ger- Y. * * • ? 

many was no factor in the 

Mediterranean situation. 

None of her ships, except the 

Goeben and the Breslau, the ' 

Story of which is told else- Australians embarking at Sydney off to the war 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




French hydroaeroplane assisting the gunners ro bombard the Dardanelles 



which there were no foreign guests, was drunk 
the cryptic toast "Der Tag" — meaning The 
Day when Great Britain and Germany should 
try conclusions on the sea. Always it 
brought the younger officers to their feet with 
cheers and brimming glasses, for whatever 
may have been the real attitude of the Ger- 
man nation in the five years before the war, 
the navy was fairly spoiling for a fight. 

However bellicose and confident the atti- 
tude of the younger officers, the High Com- 
mand of the German navy had no illusions 



about the power of their navy to withstand 
that of Great Britain. On the instant of the 
declaration of war they accepted the position 
of the inferior power and swept all their fight- 
ing ships that were within range of protected 
naval bases into these places of refuge — those 
that were far from Germany in foreign seas 
became mere commerce destroyers going to 
and fro on the face of the waters sinking un- 
armed ships, and avoiding,with one or two ex- 
ceptions, any adversaries worthy of their 
metal. The North Sea was swept clean and 




German battleship squadron with its guardian Zeppelin 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



129 







H. M. S. Lion racing into actii 



Copyrignt by intern 



the High Sea Fleet, under command of Ad- 
miral von Igenohl, scurried to Wilhelmshaven 
and Kiel as chickens skurry for safety under 
the wings of the hen when the shadow of a 
hawk falls athwart the poultry yard. It was 
not glorious strategy, but it was wise strategy. 
It admitted the inferiority of the German 
fleet and indicated a purpose to use it pru- 
dently as fortunate chances might arise, to 
prune down the enemy's overwhelming 
power, meantime adhering to the sage but 



inglorious twentieth century maxim, "Safety 
First." No naval authority questions the 
wisdom of the German tactics, nor can one feel 
more than an amused toleration of the per- 
petual German boast that they were ready 
enough to fight if the "British would only 
come out of their holes." 

That was pure brag for home consumption. 
But perhaps it was no more so than the assur- 
ance of Winston Churchill, First Lord of the 
British Admiralty, to Parliament apropos of 




British sub 



marines 1 



n Gosport Harbor 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



130 

the elusive German fleet 
that "we will soon dig 
the rats out of their 
holes." Thatwasin 1914 
and 1918 saw the Ger- 
man naval bases still un- 
disturbed. However, the 
British fleet was ever 
in the North Sea patrol- 
ling before the closed, 
mined and guarded 
seagates behind which 
lay the vessels of the 
Kaiser. Moreover Ger- 
man merchant ships 
vanished from the seas 
while the ocean com- 
merce of Great Britain 
fed her people and mu- 
nitioned her armies and 
those of her allies un- 
vexed by interference 
other than that of the 
sinister submarines, 
and a few commerce 
destroyers, the latter 
being disposed of in 
the first six months of 
the war. In every neu- 
tral port of the world 
German merchant ship- 
ping was tied up for 
refuge from British 
cruisers — and as neutral 
after neutral entered 
the war on the Allied 
side the ships fell an 
easy prey to the new 
belligerents. In New 
York alone more than 
$100,000,000 worth of 
ships were thus lost to 
Germany. More than 
a million tons of Ger- 
man shipping were 
taken by British cruis- 
ers in the first two 
months of the war. 

The story of the 
German commerce de- 
stroyers which escaped to the high seas on the 
outbreak of war is full of dashing incident. 
The devices by which the German naval 
office was able to keep track of these widely 
separated ships, and to arrange with precision 
the rendezvous far from the lanes of com- 




A German Zeppelin over London is spotted by a search 
light 



merce at which neu- 
tral ships would meet 
them with coal, food 
and provisions, would 
make a story of engross- 
ing interest. But all 
details are not yet ob- 
tainable. Elsewhere 
the story of the Emden, 
most dashing of all the 
raiders, is told in some 
elaboration. Enough 
here to chronicle the 
ends of the others, to 
show how brief was the 
shrift allowed them, and 
how wide the net the 
British navy flung forth 
to enmesh its foes. 
Kaiser Wilhelm der 
Grosse, a converted 
"ocean greyhound," 
went first, sunk off" the 
Cape Verde islands, 
August 30, 1914. In the 
far-ofF South Atlantic 
the Cap Trafalgar met 
her fate after a fight with 
the Carmania, a liner 
many Americans will 
remember, September 
14th. The Spreezvald 
was captured by the 
Benvick later in the 
same month. The 
Dresden went under in 
March, 191 5, off the 
Island of Juan Fer- 
nandez. The Koenigs- 
berg hotly pursued by 
enemy ships hid in an 
African river and was 
pounded to pieces by 
monitors. The Karls- 
ruhe simply vanished — 
probably the victim of 



a tropical typhoon. 
Prince Eitel Friedrich 
found the pace too hot 
and slipped into New- 
port News for shelter. There she lay 
until, at our entrance upon the war, the 
United States seized her and made of her 
the transport De Kalb. Under the new 
flag she took to France the first detach- 
ment of United States troops. The single 






THE NATIONS AT WAR 



131 




The naval battle off Jutland on the afternoon of May 31, 1916, in which the British superdreadnought Audacious was sunk 
is considered one of the greatest sea fights ot modern times. Lifeboats are seen picking up the crews 



raiders had all disappeared by July, 191 5. 
Oft' the impregnable fortress of Heligoland, 
possession of which Germany owes to the nar- 
row vision of Lord Salisbury, a sharp little ac- 
tion was fought August 28th in which the Ger- 
man cruisers Mainz and K'dln were sunk, and 
according to British report another cruiser de- 
stroyed — the latter being denied by the Ger- 
mans. The Arethusa, a British cruiser, suf- 
fered severely. The fight was brisk but with- 
out notable qualities, for its issue was certain 
because of the overpowering British force, 
not all of which ever went into the action. 
The battle was invited by the British who 
sent a flotilla of submarines backed by two 
squadrons of destroyers into the Bight of 
Heligoland. They were quickly detected 
by German airplanes and destroyers and 
cruisers came out to cut them off. The day 
was hazy — marked by what naval men call 
"low visibility." Nevertheless a lively little 
battle occurred. Both sides brought up 



cruisers to support their smaller craft and in 
the end Admiral Beatty brought into action 
his squadron of battle cruisers whose presence 
definitely settled the action. Behind Heligo- 
land Von Igenohl had battle cruisers of his 
own, but for some reason forbore to send them 
into action with the result that his light 
cruisers were fairly crushed by the weight of 
British metal. One of the British officers 
described the battle succinctly in a letter — 
"There really was nothing for us to do ex- 
cept to shoot the enemy as Pa shoots pheas- 
ants.' But as the first naval battle of the 
war it aroused the wildest excitement in 
London. 

The Germans, however, quickly had their 
revenge. On the morning of September 22d 
three British cruisers, the Aboukir, Cressy, 
and Hogue, were patrolling the North Sea not 
far from the Hook of Holland. They were all 
three cruisers of the same class; 12,000 tons 
each, with a 6-inch armor belt amidships, 



132 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




© Underwood & Underwood 
One of the most remarkable of photographs, taken from the bridge of a Zeppelin 
during a battle in the skies in a German air raid on England 



with a main battery of two 
9.2 inch guns and twelve 
6-inch, and a complement of 
755 men each. Well within 
the range of action of the 
German submarine and tor- 
pedo boats, their officers may 
well be supposed to have been 
all vigilance. At such a time 
a warship is all eyes. 

Nevertheless, from none of 
these ships was a warning 
cry raised until a German 
submarine had slipped up to 
within a mile, fired her tor- 
pedo, and sent the Aboukir 
to her destruction. Gal- 
lantly, but as the event 
showed, rashly, her sister 
cruisers rushed to the aid of 
the stricken ship, but were 
themselves torpedoed by the 
same unseen enemy and sent 
to the bottom. Its deadly 
work completed, itself too 
small to be of aid in rescuing 
any of the survivors, the 
German submarine U-g, Cap- 




The wreck of the famous cruiser Emden which, before her destruction off Cocos Island by the Australian cruiser Sydney, had 

destroyed 2 warships and 25 merchant ships 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



i.13 



tain Otto Weddigen, with 26 men aboard, 
slipped away as secretly as it had stolen up 
and reached its base at Wilhelmshaven in 
safety. 

At the moment this was the most notable 
achievement in the history of submarine war- 
fare. Only the vaguest details of the exploit 



from Captain Weddigen himself. After tell- 
ing of his voyage, the duration of winch he 
conceals, he says that when eighteen miles 
northwest of the Hook of Holland he sighted 
through his periscope three British cruisers. 

I submerged completely and laid my course so as 
to bring up in the centre of the trio, which held a sort of 




French hospital made a mark for the attacking German planes. Smoke is seen arising from the ashes of ten barracks. This 
hospital is only fifteen miles from the front lines, and serves for men too badly injured to be transported to the interior 



were permitted to leak out, the German War 
Office not being anxious for any intelligence 
to be made public that might interfere with 
the success of subsequent raids of the same 
sort, while the British Admiralty was not de- 
sirous of giving any additional publicity to so 
disquieting an illustration of the helplessness 
of even armored ships before the sinister sub- 
marine. An American newspaper, the New 
York World, secured some time later and pub- 
lished the following description of the exploit 



triangular formation. I could see their gray-black 
sides riding high over the water. 

When I first sighted them they were near enough 
for torpedo work, but I wanted to make my aim sure, 
so I went down and in on them. I had taken the po- 
sition of the three ships before submerging and I suc- 
ceeded in getting another flash through my periscope 
before I began action. I soon reached what I regarded 
as a good shooting point. 

Then I loosed one of my torpedoes at the middle 
ship. I was then about twelve feet under water and 
got the shot off in good shape, my men handling the 



134 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Sir John Jellicoe's flagship, the Iron Duke 



boat as if she had been a skiff". I climbed to the sur- 
face to get a sight through my tube of the effect, and 
discovered that the shot had gone straight and true, 
striking the ship, which I learned later was the Aboukir, 
under one of her magazines, which in exploding helped 
the torpedo's work of destruction. 

There was a fountain of water, a burst of smoke, a 
flash of fire, and part of the cruiser rose in the air. 
1 hen I heard a roar and felt reverberations sent through 
the water by the detonation. She had been broken 
apart and sank in a few minutes. The Aboukir had been 
stricken in a vital spot by an unseen force that made 
the blow .ill the greater. 



Her crew were brave, and even with death staring 
them in the face kept to their posts, ready to handle 
their useless guns, for I submerged at once. But I 
stayed on top long enough to see the other cruisers, 
which I learned were the Cressy and Hague, turn and 
steam full speed to their dying sister, whose plight they 
could not understand, unless it had been due to an 
accident. 

1 he ships came on a mission of inquiry and rescue, 
for many of the Aboukir 's crew were now in the water, 
the order having been given, "Each man for himself." 

But soon the other two English cruisers learned 
what had brought about the destruction so suddenly. 




Great Britain 



arrays her war strength. I he naval review at Spithead, just before the outbreak ot the war, was probably 
greatest display of armed sea power ever made 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



i3S 







■H 





j Undern I & U"n lera 1 

This wonderful picture shows a German plane (lashing through space to earth 
after being bombed by a French flier overhead 



As I reached my torpedo depth I sent a second at 
the nearer of the oncoming vessels, which charge was 
for the Hogue. The English were playing my game, 
for I had scarcely to move out of my position, which 
was a great aid, since it helped to keep me from detec- 
tion. 

On board my little boat the spirit of the German 
navy was to be seen in its best form. With enthusiasm 
every man held himself in check and gave attention 
to the work in hand. 

The attack on the Hogue went true. But this time 
I did not have the advantageous aid of having the 
torpedo detonate under the magazine, so for twenty 
minutes the Hogue lay wounded and helpless on the 
surface before she heaved, half turned over, and sank. 

By this time, the third cruiser knew, 
of course, that the enemy was upon 
her and she sought as best she could 
to defend herself. She loosed her tor- 
pedo defense batteries of both star- 
board and port, and stood her ground 
as if more anxious to help the many 
sailors who were in the water than to 
save herself. In common with the 
method of defending herself against a 
submarine attack, she steamed in a 
zigzag course, and this made it neces- 
sary for me to hold my torpedoes 
until I could lay a true course for 
them, which also made it necessary 
for me to get nearer to the Cressv. 
I had come to the surface for a view 
and saw how wildly the fire was being 
sent from the ship. Small wonder 
that was when they did not know 
where to shoot, although one shot 
went unpleasantly near us. 

When I got within suitable range I 



sent away my third attack. This time 
I sent a second torpedo after the first 
to make the strike doubly certain. 
My crew were aiming like sharp- 
shooters and both torpedoes went to 
their bull's eye. My luck was with 
me again, for the enemy was made 
useless and at once began sinking by 
her head. Then she careened far 
over, but all the while her men stayed 
at the guns looking for their invisible 
foe. 1 hey were brave and true to 
their country's sea traditions. Then 
she eventually suffered a boiler ex- 
plosion and completely turned turtle. 
\\ ith her keel uppermost she floated 
until the air got out from under 
her and then she sank with a loud 
sound, as if from a creature in pain. 

The whole affair had taken less 
than one hour from the time of shoot- 
ing off the first torpedo until the 
Cressy went to the bottom. Not one 
of the three had been able to use any of its big guns. 
I knew the wireless of the three cruisers had been 
calling for aid. I was still quite able to defend myself, 
but I knew that news of the disaster would call many 
English submarines and torpedo-boat destroyers, so 
having done my appointed work I set my course for 
home. 

More than 1,200 men went down with the 
three cruisers — done to their death by a hand- 
ful of but 26. Thirty-six thousand tons of 
modern steel warships, packed with heavy 
guns and equipped with all the latest devices 
for maritime warfare, were destroyed in an 
hour by a pigmy craft of 450 tons. What 



■ 




£j Underwood & Underwood 
Every conceivable sort ot a cave or underground passageway is utilized to pro* 
tect the helpless from the ruthless air raids ot* the Germans 



136 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



wonder that men the world over 
began to predict the abandon- 
ment even of the dreadnoughts, 
for all their weight of armor on 
their sides will avail them not a 
whit against attack from below. 
As the ironclad sides of the 
Merrimac, and the revolving 
turret of the little Monitor 
relegated to the scrapheap the 
"wooden walls of England," 
so the submarine, and its 
scarcely less sinister coadjutor, 
the airship, may put an end 
to the #12,000,000 floating forts 
of steel which the Powers have 
been building. 

But no success of like extent 
and dramatic quality was won 
again by the German under- 
water-boats. After this bitter 
experience the British materially altered 
their naval tactics in water frequented bv 
submarines. Vessels of the size of the three 
slaughtered cruisers were no longer employed 
as patrols in such waters. Trawlers, converted 
yachts and small swift motor boats called 
"chasers" were used instead, exposing the 
minimum number of men to peril. And out of 
this disaster sprang a new naval regulation 
that jarred sadly upon the gallantry of the ser- 
vice, for it was ordered that whenever one of a 
squadron was sunk the others instead of com- 
ing to the succor of the survivors should seek 
safetV in flight — scattering far and wide to 





1*. * "-i-- 

c Underwood & Underwood 

The result of a German air raid on England. In this case two schoolboys 

were killed 



£) Underwood & Underwood 
111 a recent raid over England, these two German Gothas were destroyed and 
their six occupants made prisoners 



every point of the compass. It was a prudent 
rule but one most repugnant to the chivalrous 
instincts of navy men. 

Because of these new regulations and of 
growing skill in the detection of submarines the 
operations of submarines against warships 
were not of great importance after the first 
ten weeks of war. Yet in that period seven 
British cruisers with a tonnage of 48,370 
were sunk by the "vipers of the sea" with a 
loss of 2,298 men. The losses were mainly 
on the British side because British ships 
onlv were at sea — the Germans were locked 
up in their mined and fortified harbors. In 
such service as was open to them 
British submarine commanders 
gave a good account of them- 
selves. In 191 5 one of them 
took his boat from an English 
port, the whole length of the 
Mediterranean, through the 
Dardanelles, dived under five 
rows of mines and sunk the 
Turkish battleship Mesudieh. 
After the early months of the 
war German submarine activity 
took the form of a campaign 
against merchant ships of every 
nation, including the neutrals, in 
a vain effort to shut off the sup- 
plies of food and munitions that 
were pouring into England from 
every quarter. As it was this 
campaign that brought Ger- 
many into collision with the 



United States, ultimately 
forcing the latter nation 
into the war, its details 
will be considered in the 
chapters dealing with 
that subject. 

When the outbreak of 
the war was announced 
by cables and wireless to 
the world there were scat- 
tered about Pacificwaters 
seven German wa rships of 
considerable power — 
Aeolus, Dresden, Leipzig, 
Nurnberg, Scharnhorst, 
Emden and Gneisenau. At 
the moment they were 
widely dispersed, perhaps 
no two being within 2,oco 
miles of each other, and 
the way in which Vice 
Admiral Graf von Spee 
gathered them into a 
squadron was the admira- 
tion of naval men of the 
time. The Aeolus he was 
unable to get. She ran 
across a Japanese man- 
of-war at Honolulu and 
was sunk. The Emden 
joined the rest at the ap- 
pointed rendezvous but 
was at once detached for 
work as a commerce de- 
stroyer. The other five 
cruised southward in the 
Pacific. 

It was Britain's task to 
overhaul and demolish 
this squadron as speedily 
as possible. It had in 
waters near Cape Horn a 
fleet of three cruisers 
under Admiral Cradock 
— a force which proved 
utterly inadequate to 
cope with Von Spee's 
squadron. But it appears 
that there was some doubt 
as to whether Von Spee 
had the Scharnhorst and 
Gneisenau — new heavily 
armored ships — with him. 
Hoping that they might 
not be, Cradock was or- 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



.BATTLE 
*. SHIPS 



FIRST PHASE 
3-45 P.M. 



MAY-3IU 
1916 



.». BATTLE 
^% CRUISERS 



16000 YARDS 



<y BATTLE 
/TRUISCRS 



SECOND PHASE 
4-40 -P.M. 



BATTLE 
SHIPS 



Afy HIGH 

%> SEAS 



\j 



BATTLC % .« 
CRUISERS 



BATTLE 
CRUISERS 
HlNDENBERG 
SUMK AT TURK 



INDEFATIGABLE 
i« PUEEN MARY 
'• INVICIBLE 



SUNK AT 
TURN 



BATTLE* i\ 
CRUISERS ,N 



DERFFUNGER 
SUNK 
BATTLE 
j CRUISERS 



TH'RD PHASE 
J-00 P.M. 



V>, HIGH SEAS 
^ FLEET 




QUEEN 
ELIZABETHS 



BA-TLE 
CRUISERS' 



FOURTH PHASE 
6-00 P.M. 



si BATTLE 
o\CRUISERS 



GRAND 
FLEET 



THREE \» 

QUEEN \ 

ELIZABETHS 



HISH SEAS 

*U. FLEET 




FIFTH PHASE 

NIGHT 

9-00 P.M, 



GERMAN 

', LINES' OF RETREAT 



IGH SEA", 
V ''/FLEET 



400Q YARDS 

•i. 

THREE 
QUEEN 
ELIZABETHS 



Diagram showing fleet formation in battle off Jut- 
land 



137 

him. By way of safe- 
guard the Admiralty or- 
dered the Canopus, which 
was in Pacific waters, to 
his aid, but it proved a 
slow ship and arrived too 
late to take part in the 
battle. 

The two squadrons met 
November 1st oft Col- 
onel, on the coast ofChile. 
The British admiral must 
have seen at a glance that 
his case was hopeless, for 
the two newGerman ships 
were in the van, while his 
belated reenforcement, 
the Canopus, was barely 
within reach of the wire- 
less. Nevertheless he 
flung out his battle flags 
to the gale that was blow- 
ing and went gallantly 
into action. The fleets as 
they went into the fight 
compared thus: 



GERM \X 



Scharnhorst. 
Gneisenau . 

Leipzig 
Nurnberg . 

Dresden . . . 



Monmouth . 
Good Hope 



Glasgow . 



E ight 8. z-inch; 
. / six 6-inch guns 

> Ten 4-inch guns 

. . . Twelve 4-inch 
guns 

BRITISH 

. . . Fourteen 6-inch 

guns 
. . . Two 9.2-inch; 

sixteen 6-inch 

guns 
. . . Two 6-inch; ten 

4-inch guns 



Otranto 



. . . Merely an 
armed transport 

The discrepancy in 
force was even greater 
than the table shows, for 
the 6-inch guns of the 
Good Hope and Monmouth 
being mounted on the 
lower deck were of prac- 
tically no use in the wild 
storm in which the battle 
was fought. The broad- 
side from the Gneisenau 



was of 3,300 lbs., the 
dered to seek out the enemy and destroy answering fire from Good Hope's two 9-inch 



133 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Aboukir (at the left) was hit first, after which the Hague (in foreground) was torpedoed so fatally as to sink within 

' avoc wrought in the two sinking ships, was so appalled that he almost retired without 

four navies fighting us, whereupon 



ing the submarine, when he saw the havoc 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



139 




tes. Meanwhile the CressyS boats were on their way to rescue the Aboukus crew. Lt We £diger J. ~™^- 
attempting the destruction of the Cressy. His second in command is said to have reminded Weddigen, You know we 
the third fatal torpedo was launched 



140 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




guns was but 760 lbs., and her 
6-inch guns could seldom be used. 
It is a tribute to the amazing 
accuracy of 
modern na- 
val gunnery 
that serious 
execution 
was done by either side, 
for the fight began just as 
evening was closing down 
upon a wildly tempestuous sea. The Germans 
had the advantage of position, for the land 
behind them obscured the silhouette of their 
ships, while the British were sharply outlined 
against the dying sunset. But the waves 
were mountainous, the ships pitching like 
corks with the seas breaking over their top- 
most works. Nevertheless the German gun- 
nery was such that in ten minutes the Mon- 
mouth, a mass of flames, was reeling out of the 
line, helpless and sinking. Good Hope was 
soon in like distress and in less than an hour 
blew up. On the two ships 1,600 men, includ- 
ing the Admiral, perished. The little un- 
armored Glasgow, sorely wounded, limped 
away, joined the Canopus, and ultimately 
found safety. The German squadron was 
uninjured, six wounded on the Gneisenau 
being the measure of the casualties. 

This overwhelming defeat in the first con- 
siderable action of the war was a cruel blow 
to British naval pride. Twenty ships in all 
had now been lost to the Germans with no 
commensurate loss inflicted upon them. 
Berlin was exultant and London 
depressed, but not for long. 

Von Spee's squadron must be 
exterminated. That was the de- 
termination of the Admiralty and 
they did not intend to make the 
mistake of again sending a boy 
upon a man's errand. Vice Ad- 
miral Sturdee with seven vessels, 
including two battle cruisers, 
Invincible and Inflexible, were 
sent to the Falkland Islands to 
coal and proceed thence on the 
search for the German fleet. By 
a stroke of good luck for the 
British, Von Spee determined al- 
so to go to the Falklands for coal. 
The two fleets met at the harbor's 
mouth December 7, 1914. The 
full strength of the British fleet 
was not at first evident to the 



German commanderand he made preparations 
for battle with his usual gallantry. But when 
the two great battle cruisers, at first concealed 
by the configuration of the land, came into 
action the German admiral very properly 
turned and fled. Only so could he hope to 
save even a fragment of his fleet. He was 
outclassed in metal, range, and speed. Not 
less than twenty 12-inch guns (for which he 
had no match whatsoever) opposed him. The 
British had, moreover, four 7T2 and thirty- 
eight 6-inch rifles. They could, and did, 
keep out of range of the Germans and batter 
them to pieces in entire satety. 

Hoping to save his lighter cruisers Von Spee 
signalled them to drop out of line and make 
off, each for itself. But a faster and more 
powerful British ship was sent in pursuit of 
each fugitive. Leipzig sank under the fire 
of Glasgoiv. Nurnberg, though a knot faster 
on paper than her adversary Kent, was kept 
under fire by the superhuman efforts of the 
men in the latter's stokehold. She too was 
sunk. "The enemy continued firing their 
guns," writes the English commander, "until 
the ship was sinking, and as she sunk beneath 
the surface some brave men on her quarter 
deck were waving the German ensign." 
Dresden and Prince Eitel Friedrich escaped 
and became commerce raiders. We have al- 
ready told of their later fate. 

But the two chief German ships put up a 
magnificent running fight. Scharnhorst fell 
to the guns of Inflexible; Gneisenau to those 
of Sturdee's flagship Invincible. The fight 




These machine gunners are learning to hit airplanes. Machine guns as well 
as anti-aircratt cannon can be counted among the active enemies of the aviator. 
In low-altitude work, particularly infantry control and balloon attacks, the 
aviators are in far more danger from machine-gun bullets than from anti-aircraft 
shells. If French aviators cross the German lines at less than 2,000 feet they 
expect to bring back some bullet holes 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



141 




The 



© Underwood & Underwood 
destruction of a French sausage balloon by a German 
plane. It is seen tailing in flames to earth 



lasted from one to four of a midsummer's 
afternoon, December in that sub-equatorial 
region being the middle of the heated term. 
It was for the British a battle of little loss. 
Their great guns outranged the enemy and 
their superior speed enabled them to main- 
tain their position at any distance they chose. 
Through their glasses the officers could see 
the shells tear great holes in the sides of the 
fleeing ships showing the interiors glowing 
with ruddy flames. Scharnhorst went first, 
vanishing in a cloud of flame, smoke and 
steam. Gneisenau followed an hour later, 
turning over on her side and sinking with her 
dead, wounded, and many unhurt men. 
About two hundred were saved by the victors. 
The British losses were trifling — on the In- 
flexible, one killed; on the Kent, four; the 
Glasgow, nine. The German losses were heavy 
but not yet officially reported. Admiral 
Von Spee went down with four of his sons. 
January 24, 191 5, the Germans suffered 
another disaster afloat, this time in that part 
of the North Sea off" the Dogger Bank. 
Though all the records were against them 
they persisted for years in denying that the 
battle was a reverse for their fleet. Not until 




The destruction of the cruiser Mainz. This photograph was taken by a sailor on one of the British ships engaged in the 
fight off Heligoland. At the moment this picture was taken the two funnels of the Mainz had been shot away and flames were 
bursting through her deck. A few minutes later the doomed vessel sank, still defiantly firing to the last 



142 

r 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 









1 he British Home Fleet steaming through the Solent. From left to right: the King George, Thunderer, Monarch and Conqueror 



peace brings to the historian access to all 
official reports can the truth be ascertained 
with precision. 

On that day a German squadron of four 
battle cruisers, the Bl'iicher, Moltke, Seydlitz, 
and Derflinger, under command of Admiral 
Hipper, was steaming west, not far from the 
coast of England. Why the ships had left the 
snug refuge of Heligoland to brave the British 
guard is not explained. Probably it was 
hoped that they might elude British vigilance, 
round the northern end of Scotland, and get 
out into the open sea, there to prey on the 
shipping of the Allies as had the Emden and the 
Karlsruhe. If this had been the plan, the 
German authorities bungled it badlv by at- 
taching to the three fast ships of the squadron, 
which were capable of a 
speed of 26 to 28 knots, 
the Bl'iicher, which was 
barely able to turn off 24 
knots. 

Whatever the purpose 
of this expedition may 
have been, it was clearly 
not to fight, for, encoun- 
tering a British squadron 
of five battle cruisers near 
the English coast the Ger- 
mans instantly turned to 
flee. 



In Admiral Beatty's squadron were the 
Lion, Tiger, Princess Royal, New Zealand, and 
Indomitable. The Lion had thirteen 5-inch 
guns; the main battery of the others was of 
12-inch guns. In the German fleet only the 
Derflinger mounted guns of 12-inch calibre. 
According to statistics the gunfire of the 
British was to that of the German squadron 
as 23 to 13 — a heavy disparity which justified 
Admiral Hipper in taking to flight. Unfor- 
tunately for him the disparity in speed was 
quite as much in favor of the British; and this 
fact, added to the longer range of their guns, 
put the whole German fleet at the pursuer's 
mercy, should the chase last long enough. 
When the battle opened the Germans were 
about 100 miles from Heligoland, with the 




his plane is known as the Caudron type and is especially designed tor running down enemy 

planes 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



143 




1 1 nderwood lV I nderwood 
This big German biplane is one that was brought clown by the British in the great Cambrai drive 



leading British ship, the Lion, about 9.6 miles 
astern of her principal target, the Blucher. 

At a distance of nine and a half miles the 
British gunners, themselves on a ship tossing 
on the turbulent waters of the North Sea, 
were aiming their shots at a mark not more 
than 90 feet wide, barely discernible on the 
horizon and rushing through the water at the 
rate of more than 25 knots an hour. It 
seems incredible that under such conditions 
great damage could be done, but the accounts 
of survivors tell how deadly was the marks- 
manship. One German bluejacket, saved 
from the waves after his ship had gone down, 
told to his captors this story of the fight as 
seen from the Blucher: 

We saw the big English ships steadily overhauling 
us. We knew that as we had more than a hundred 
miles to sail we would never get away. The first Brit- 
ish ship opened fire at something like ten miles' range, 
and the carnage on the Blucher began. 

We were under fire first in the action and last. 
Practically every English ship poured projectile shell 
upon us. It was awful. I have never seen such gun- 
nery and hope that as long as I live I never shall again. 
We could not fight such guns as the English ships had, 
and soon we had no guns with which to fight anything. 
Our decks were swept by shot, guns were smashed and 
lying in all directions, their crews wiped out. 

One terrible shell from a big gun — I cannot for- 
get it — burst right in the heart of the ship and killed 
scores of men. It fell where many men had collected, 
killing practically every man. 

We all had our floating equipment. We soon 
needed it. One shell killed five men quite close to me, 



and it was only a matter of time when nothing living 
would have been left upon the ship. 

When we knew we were beaten and that our flag 
was not to come down many of us were praying that 
the ship would go down, in order that no more men 
might be killed. 

\\ e would rather trust to the English picking us 




• ■ l nderwood ^V I nderwo 
Bomb compartment on a Frfejich plane looking forward to the 
driver's seat 



144 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



up after our ship had sunk 
than to missing us with those 
terrible guns. 

I do not know what it was 
that finished the Blucher. She 
was battered to pieces above 
decks and had many holes. 
I heard she was struck by a 
torpedo and went down after 
that. If that is true, we have 
to thank the ship that tor- 
pedoed us for saving hun- 
dreds of lives. 

When the ship was going 
down, I jumped clear and 
tried to swim off. When she 
turned over some caught hold 
of some part of her, but she 
sank from under us. It was 
terribly cold in the water. 
There were wounded men and 
dead men. Terribly shattered 
swimmers shouting for help 
were all around me. 

My mind is confused after 
that. I was picked up by a 
small English warship, as I 
hoped. The men were very 
kind. We were warmed, fed 
and clothed. 

The final stroke to the 
Blucherwas delivered by 
a torpedo, though she 
had been put out of ac- 
tion before that coup de 

grace. Of her crew of 835, more than 700 were 
lost, and it is a striking evidence of the inade- 
quacy of the German gunfire that the loss on 
the Lion, which led the British pursuers, was 
only eleven wounded. None were killed in the 
British fleet. In this disparity of losses the 
action was somewhat reminiscent of the bat- 
tle of Santiago in the Spanish-American War. 
But any comparison of the two battles re- 
dounds very greatly to the superior credit of 
the American navy. For at Santiago the 
pursuit was not checked nor the fires slack- 
ened until the last Spanish ship lay a help- 
less, smoking wreck on the coast of Cuba. 
But in this North Sea battle three of the Ger- 
man ships escaped, despite the superior 
strength and speed of their British pursuers. 

The long stretch of British coast separated 
from the Belgian territory' held by the Ger- 
mans only by a narrow strip of tossing water 
was a continuous temptation and irritation to 
the Kaiser's naval chiefs. Invasion seemed 
so easy and was in fact so hard. Often and 




Here are two of the most remarkable photographs of an air raid ever reproduced. 
An Italian aviator flying over the water front at Trieste has just released three bombs, 
seen near the centre of the picture a moment alter they began to fall 

bitterly would they r advert to the tactical 
error which sent Von Kluck's divisions roar- 
ing down upon Paris to no avail, when Calais 
—England's front door — lay helpless within 
his grasp. The dream of the invasion of 
England has been a pleasing one to many a 
Continental conqueror prior to Wilhelm II. 
Spain's "Invincible Armada" strewed the 
shores of the Channel with its shattered 
wrecks. Napoleon's flat-bottomed fleet of 
transports rotted in inaction. And Wil- 
helm's lust for entering upon his British 
cousin's territory has consumed itself in 
nearly four years of fruitless waiting. Some 
raids on unprotected Channel towns — fishing 
hamlets or watering places mainly — are all 
that have helped to satisfy it. Paul Jones, 
in our revolutionary days, at least led a land- 
ing party and put the torch to British ships 
lying in their berths. But no German, since 
war was declared, has set foot on British soil 
except as a captive. 

The easy exploit of bombarding Channel 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



i45 




I he airman has photographed the explosion of the bombs seen in the picture at the 
left. While the speed of his plane has carried him well beyond the point at which the 
first picture was taken, the scenes are virtually the same 

ports from the sea was, however, performed 
thrice by the German navy. In the first raid 
a very considerable force was engaged — 
three battle cruisers, among them the Blucher 
which afterwards met her end in the Bight 
of Heligoland, two armored and three light 
cruisers. Yarmouth, a mere watering place, 
was made the target for a lively but ineffective 
bombardment, after which the assailants 
went home. They had strewn mines in the 
waters they traversed, one of which sunk a 
British submarine. But the German cruiser 
Yorck struck another and went to the bottom 
with all on board, so that in the end the 
weight of disaster bore the more heavily 
upon the Germans. 

A month later, on the 16th of December, 
1914, the Germans returned to British waters 
with a fleet the precise composition of which 
has never been determined. It was under 
command of Admiral Funke. Splitting into 
two squadrons the vessels opened fire on 
Scarborough, Whitby and Hartlepool — all 



mere watering places. 
Scarborough possessed 
one gun — a Russian 
sixty-pounder muzzle 
loader preserved in a 
museum as a relic of 
the Crimean War. 
Whitby had nothing 
more dangerous than 
sporting rifles. Hartle- 
pool had a small bat- 
tery of ancient ord- 
nance. Later when 
Germany thought it ex- 
pedient to excuse these 
raids in which she at 
first exulted, she de- 
clared that two of the 
towns were naval wire- 
less stations, and the 
third a fortified point. 
It is not probable, how- 
ever, that such con- 
siderations caused the 
raids, but rather that 
they were part of that 
policy of "frightful- 
ness" which had char- 
acterized German war- 
fare from the outset. 
A raid upon Dover, 
which came off" in Feb- 
ruary, 1918, had more 
excuse as that town was in fact a military camp. 
Possibly the raiders thought that Eng- 
land might be terrorized by an enemy's 
shells dropping in her seaports, and insist 
upon a larger proportion of her troops being 
kept from the battle fields of Flanders for 
home defense. But the raids had precisely 
the opposite effect. They aroused the Brit- 
ish fighting spirit and prodigiously increased 
voluntary enlistments. The losses sustained 
by the peaceful citizens were of a sort to en- 
rage their fellows. Schools and hospitals 
were struck. Children, women, babies in 
their mothers' arms were killed or maimed. 
In Hartlepool 119 were killed and over 300 
wounded; at Scarborough eighteen killed — 
mostly women and children — and seventy 
wounded. At Whitby the dead were three; 
the wounded, two. 

More than a year elapsed after the clash 
of the two great North Sea fleets off the Dog- 
ger Bank before they met again in battle. 
The fight that took place on the 31st of May, 



146 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




H. M. S. Canopus bombarding the Turkish batteries with her 12-inch guns in the Dardanelles 



1916, known as the Battle of Jutland, 
though the severest and costliest of the ac- 
tions in the North Sea, presented the familiar 
features of the other two. The lighter ves- 
sels of the British fleet cruising in advance 




• Underwood & Under 
British submarine E-17 on coast patrol duty in a rough sea off Jutland 



of its main body encountered the German 
fleet. The latter, tempted by the oppor- 
tunity to cut them off, gave battle with fair 
prospect of victory. The heavier vessels 
of the British coming up later so outmatched 
the Germans in weight of 
metal and range of guns that 
the latter were compelled to 
seek safety in flight. In the 
end both belligerents claimed 
the victory. 

It was at that period of the 
war the practice of the German 
fleet to make short cruises from 
their protected bases weekly. 
The practice was needed by 
officers and men. The spectacle 
of the fleet sweeping grandly 
out to sea was calculated to fire 
the German imagination even 
though it returned next day 
with nothing to report. And 
the excursions into the open sea 
were necessary to keep up the 
pet fiction that Germany was 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



i47 







London with her powerful searchlights on the watch for aerial foes by night 

continuously offering combat while the Brit- Admiral von Hipper's cruisers in the van, 
ish would not come out and fight. On this with Admiral von Scheer's battle fleet follow- 
last day of May the German High Sea Fleet, ing, was cruising about one hundred miles 

off Jutland. The day was clear, 
save for a slight haze, hot and 
calm. It is probable that the 
German admiral was aware that 
the British fleet was patrolling 
those waters and hoped to meet 
it under conditions which would 
enable him to cut off some of its 
lighter vessels. This wish was 
not wholly without fulfilment. 
The British fleet was indeed 
in the neighborhood — using that 
word in the broad sense which 
the colossal proportions of 
modern naval tactics compel. 
For though operating as a unit, 
obeying in all fleet manoeuvres 
the orders of one central au- 
thority conveyed by wireless, 
the British fleet was in fact 

Hoisting ammunition aboard a British battleship before a cruise extended over an area of 3OO 




T-l8 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



149 




British 15-inch guns ready for action 



square miles when Admiral Beatty's squadron 
came first in touch with the enemy. 

The situation which Beatty confronted 
was not dissimilar to that which had pre- 
sented itself at the opening of the Battle of 
Dogger Bank. He found himself superior 
to the foe in his immediate front, but marked- 
ly inferior to the entire German force. If by 
swift attack he could crush Von Hipper's 
squadron before Von Scheer with his battle 
fleet came up, well and good. But if Von 
Scheer got into action before Sir John Jellicoe, 
who at the time of opening action was sixty 
miles away, could come up with his battle- 
ships, the outcome might be disastrous. But 
as in earlier actions Beatty took the chance. 

Observed from the British side the battle 
took on three characteristic forms — pursuit, 
retreat, pursuit again. When Beatty first 
overtook Von Hipper that commander, recog- 
nizing the presence of a superior enemy force, 
was steaming away to the southeast for dear 
life, in the effort to make a juncture with 
Von Scheer who was coming up with the bat- 
tle fleet. Beatty opened fire shortly before 
four P. M. at a range of 14,000 yards. This 
was the moment for him to make his greatest 
gains. He had not only two battle cruiser 
squadrons — six ships against Von Hipper's 
five — but a battle squadron of four ships 
of the colossal Queen Elizabeth class for which 
his immediate adversary had no match. 



But curiously enough the period during 
which he enjoyed the greatest superiority in 
force was the time of his greatest losses. 
His fleet had been in action only about 
twenty minutes when a German shot struck 
the Indefatigable in a vital spot and she blew 
up. Not long after Queen Mary, battle cruiser, 
met a like fate. The British reports declare 
that the German gunnery was particularly 
effective in the early stages of the battle, but 
went to pieces as the German ships themselves 
began to suffer. The explanation, however, 
does not explain the apparently light damage 
inflicted on the enemy by the superior British 
guns in this period. But it is true that we 
have no precise information as to the extent 
of the German losses. The British could 
only guess at the names and fate of vessels 
they observed to take fire and drop out of 
line, while the German admiralty sedulously 
suppressed anything like a detailed story 
of the action. 

Another reason for the seeming ill-luck 
of the British in the earlier period of combat 
is the fact that they were fighting a pursuing 
battle. On seeing Beatty's approach Von 
Hipper had promptly and properly run 
away. It was his proper course to fall back 
upon the support of the battle fleet and to 
lure the British foe after him. For a little 
more than an hour Beatty fought a pursuing 
action, and in a running fight of that nature 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




rst pictuu 



it th 



ish monitors with single 15-inch guns bombarding 
the Belgian coast 



the pursuer is always at a disadvantage. 
The chase can drop mines in her wake and 
use torpedoes and submarines effectively, 
neither of which weapons are available to 
the pursuer. It is interesting, however, to 
note that no capital ship on either side is 




German Zeppelin L-15 brought down by anti-aircraft guns off 
the coast of Kent 



definitely known to have suf- 
fered material injury from 
either mine or torpedo — 
though some believe that Inde- 
fatigable was destroyed by the 
former weapon rather than by 
a lucky shot. But the host 
of destroyers, small cruisers, 
and torpedo boats that kept 
up a running fire between the 
lines of the capital ships suf- 
fered severely from both tor- 
pedoes and mines. 

At about five o'clock Beatty, 
seeing that he was about to 
run into the grasp of Von 
Scheer's approaching battle 
fleet, turned and fled in his 
turn towards Sir John Jelh- 
coe's advancing dreadnoughts. 
Now Von Hipper was con- 
fronted by the precise problem which the 
Englishmen met at the beginning of the 
battle. How long could he pursue without 
falling into the clutch of the superior enemy. 
He answered precisely as had Beatty and 
took up the pursuit. His pluck was re- 
warded, for, after fighting a running battle 
for about an hour without material results 
so far as capital ships were concerned, he 
managed to concentrate the fire of several 
ships on Admiral Hood's flag ship, Invin- 
cible, which had scarcely entered upon the 
action when she blew up and sank, carrying 
the Admiral with her. 

Jellicoe's fleet of battleships was now 
fairly up, and the Germans, heavily outnum- 
bered, turned to flee. It was then after six 
o'clock and under more favorable conditions 
in that latitude should have been bright. 
But a heavy mist, almost a fog, had fallen 
upon the waters. It was with difficulty ships 
could be seen at any considerable distance, 
and there was the gravest danger of mistaking 
a friend for a foe. The retreating enemy 
made skillful use of smoke screens from his 
destroyers to mask the positions of his fleeing 
ships. Once in a while the setting sun, break- 
ing through the clouds, would reveal some 
German ship en silhouette and on such occa- 
sion the great guns of Jellicoe's battleships 
spoke decisively. The British reported three 
enemy battleships driven out of the line in 
flames, and declared that a heavy explosion 
shortly afterwards told of the end of one. 
German reports concealed this. 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



i;i 




With darkness the German 
fleet disappeared. There was 
desultory righting between 
destroyers throughout the 
night and now and then the 
roar and flash of big guns in 
the blackness told that two 
cruisers had encountered each 
other only to drift out of touch 
again. In the olden days of 
Paul Jones or Lord Nelson 
ships, locked yard-arm to yard- 
arm, might fight savagely all 
night. Not so in this age when 
four miles is considered a close 
range. Moreover it was the 
strategy of the German ad- 
miral to get away from that 
expanse of sea and into the 
shelter of his base before dawn. He was heavily 
outclassed by his enemy's fleet and annihila- 
tion would probably have been his fate had 
he been discovered when day broke. Accord- 
ingly throughout the night British destroyers 
reported by wireless seeing enemy ships 
slipping away through the blackness to the 
southeast and safety. Until after noon the 
next day the British fleet cruised about the 
battle area picking up survivors and awaiting 
the return of the German fleet should it desire 
to renew the conflict. But it did not come 
back. The British held the battlefield. 

The heavy loss of life in this battle is a mat- 
ter that deserves attention. In the subjoined 
table it will be noticed that practically the 
entire personnel of many British ships is re- 
ported as lost, while on the German ships 
many were saved. This is partly due to the 
fact that the British ships went down during 
action, whereas many of the German ships, 
when crippled, were able to pull out of the 
zone of fire and save many of their people. 
Some were even in friendly home waters be- 
fore actually going down. In modern naval 
warfare the loss on a sunken vessel is apt to be 
complete. One reason for this is that a ship 
seldom pulls out of action until she is actually 
sinking. Their structure is so complicated 
that her commander may not know that she 
is about to sink until she is just on the verge 
of taking the plunge. As long as she is afloat 
at all she is a factor in the battle. A single 
happily placed shot from a sinking ship might 
be the blow to turn the tide of battle and to 
settle the destinies of the nations at war. As 
long as a ship floats it fights, its men remain 




■n Underwood & Underwood 
A squadron of torpedo-boat destroyers of the French navy in battle formation 



in the turrets, the fire rooms, and at the guns 
— all hard places to get out of when the vessel 
begins to careen. She can carry no boats or 
rafts on her deck for the blast of the guns 
would blow them to flinders. The men in 
action are provided with life belts, and be- 
tween decks there are pneumatic rafts, but 
there is scant time to put on a belt or launch 




Powerful anti-aircraft gun, pointed ready to send a shell at an 
enemy aircraft, aboard a British battleship 



152 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




"5 .E 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



153 




people. It was a foolish and 
puerile complaint of course for the 
blockade is a legitimate weapon of 
war, and was never more ruthlessly 
or effectively employed than by the 
North in our own War between 
the States. 

The following table, compiled 
from official sources both German 
and British, gives the relative 
losses so far as they have been ad- 
mitted at the present time: 

LOSSES IN NORTH SEA BATTLE OFF 
JUTLAND 

BRITISH 
Name Tonnage 



£) Underwood & Under 
Loading mammoth torpedoes aboard a British submarine 



a raft when the steel vessel loaded with guns 
and armor begins to go down. Practically 
every man goes down with the ship, and this 
fact was demonstrated at the Battle of 
Jutland. 

Germany claimed the victory noisily — still 
claims it in fact. The Kaiser rose to flights 
of oratory: "The gigantic fleet of Albion," 
he told his sailors, "ruler of the seas, which 
since Trafalgar for a hundred years has im- 
posed on the whole world a bond of sea 
tyranny, and has surrounded itself with a 
nimbus of invincibleness, came into the field. 
That gigantic Armada approached and our 
fleet engaged it. The British fleet was 
beaten." 

The British contested the Ger- 
man claim, denying heavier losses 
and pointing out that their en- 
emies were forced to seek the 
shelter of their naval bases while 
Jelhcoe's ships continued their 
ceaseless patrol of the North Sea. 
There was justification for both 
claims. But the real, vital, es- 
sential point is that after the en- 
gagement the British naval power 
was still overwhelming, its com- 
mand of the seas still unshatter- 
ed, and its blockade of German 
ports so unrelenting as to arouse 
bitter complaints from the block- 
aded nation which denounced the 
British for trying to starve the 
women and children of an entire 



Queen Mary (bat- 
tle cruiser). . . . 27,000 

/ ndefatigable (bat- 
tle cruiser) . . . 18,750 

Invincible (battle cruiser) 17,250 

Defense (armored cruiser) 14,600 

Warrior (armored cruiser) I3>55° 

Black Prince (armored cruiser) - . 13,550 

Tipperary (destroyer) 1,850 

Turbulent (destroyer) 1,850 

Shark (destroyer) 950 

Sparrowhawk (destroyer) 950 

Ardent (destroyer) 950 

Fortune (destroyer) 950 

Normad (destroyer) *950 

Nestor (destroyer) *950 

*Not listed in last British register 

TOTALS 

Battle cruisers 63,000 

Armored cruisers 41,700 

Destroyers 9,400 . 



Personnel, 
[Few Survivors] 



800 

750 

755 

704 
704 
150 
150 
100 
100 
100 
100 
100 
100 



2,550 

2.163 

900 



Fourteen ships 1 14,100 5,613 




British battleship bombard 



position on the Belgian coast 



i54 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



Name 



GERMAN 
Tonnage 



Pommern (battleship) 13,200 

Wiesbaden (cruiser) 5,600 

Frauenlob (cruiser) 2,715 

Elbui" (cruiser) 5,000 

Six destroyers (reported). . . . 6,000 



Personnel 
[Of whom many 
were saved | 

• • • • : 729 

(estimated) 450 

264 

(estimated) 450 

.(estimated) 600 



[REPORTED BY BRITISH, BUT NOT ADMITTED BY GERMANS| 



. (estimated) 
. (estimated) 



Westfalen (dreadnought) 18,900 

Derflinger (battle cruiser). . . . 26,600 
One submarine 1,000 

TOTALS 

(admitted) 

Battleship 13,200 .... 

Cruisers I 3>3 1 5 •■•■ 

Destroyers 6,000 

Ten ships 3 2 >5'5 

[INCLUDING GERMAN LOSSES REPORTED BY THE BRITISH) 

Two battleships 32,100 .■ 1,692 

Four cruisers 39>9'5 2 >364 

Six destroyers 6,000 600 

One submarine 1,000 40 



963 

1,200 

40 



729 

1,164 

600 

2-493 



Thirteen ships 79»oi5 4,696 



After the battle of Jutland months passed 
into years without the rival North Sea 
fleets coming again into collision. Each side 
accused the other of evading the combat. 
The whole twelvemonth of 1917 passed away 
without the exchange of shots by the capital 
ships of the warring nations. The United 
States entered the war with its navy which, 
at the opening of the conflict, had been com- 
monly looked upon as about a match for the 
German navy in power. In this country 
there was hope that our entrance upon the 
war might result in the adoption of methods 
expressed in our service by Farragut's famous 
phrase "Damn the torpedoes! Go ahead." 
But months passed before the Yankee blue- 
jackets saw more exciting or glorious service 
than convoying transports or hunting sub- 
marines. 



I 





A portion of the French fleet. The battleship Justice in the foreground 




A bird's-eye view ot the whole western front. It shows plainly the two gates from Germany into France. 



1 




. .. ., 



THE END 1 

This picture was taken from the British ship Arethusa, shows the Biucher afire and sinking with about Soo men clustered to \\ 




© imernational News Service 

RICHER" 

lottom. Smoke to the right shows where the last torpedo struck. She floated about ten minutes after the picture was taken 




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E 



CHAPTER VI 

THE WAR IN THE AIR DUELS IN THE SKIES RAIDS ON ENGLAND 

UNITED STATES ENTER AERONAUTICS THE BRIEF BOER REVOLT — - 

WAR IN ASIA AND AFRICA FATE OF GERMAN COLONIES THE RE- 
BELLION IN IRELAND — THE CAREER OF THE "eMDEn" — MUCKE's 
AMAZING RETREAT 



HE most novel and 
spectacular develop- 
ment of the Great War 
was the sudden appear- 
ance and prodigious ex- 
tension of an entirely new 
form of armed service — 
"the Fourth Arm" as it 
came to be called — the 
service in the air. The 
submarine was not new. 
It had been tested as far 
back as our Revolutionary 
War, and put to practical 
use in our Civil War. On- 
ly in the increasing per- 
fection of the ships, and 
the extent of their em- 
mmmmm ployment was the 
under seas service 
a new development. 
But the air service 
was all new. For the 
Hist time in history 
men met in deadly duels thousands of feet 
in air, crossed wide stretches of territory or 
grey expanses of tossing sea to rain explosives 
on some enemy stronghold, or hovered over 
the lines of the foe to spy out his movements, 
or fix the location of his carefully concealed 
great guns. From the first days of the war 
the airmen proved their worth and the em- 
battled nations feverishly pushed the con- 
struction of newer and greater fleets. Con- 
trol of the sea was conceded to Great Britain 
but control of the air was still within any 
belligerent's grasp. When the United States 
came in the first task of her government was 
to provide for the construction of a monster 
fleet of aircraft. The talk was confident of 
"blinding the Kaiser's armies," and of 
"driving Germany from the air," but Ger- 
many showed no lack of her accustomed 
efficiency in meeting the menace. 




When the war opened there was little 
difference between the air power of the 
belligerents. All had been experimenting 
with aircraft but none had actually acquired 
a coherent and serviceable fleet. Germany, 
thanks to the genius and persistence of their 
inventor, had a considerable fleet of Zeppe- 
lins — thirteen fit for service out of the twenty- 
five that the indomitable Count had con- 
structed. They proved a disappointment 
and their construction was abandoned in 
the fourth year of the war. In airplanes the 
Germans had made but little progress. 
France indeed led in the number of these 
when war came, having about 1,200 military 
planes, to which by commandeering private 
machines some 500 were added. This con- 
siderable advantage over the enemy — who 
had not more than half as many — the French 
sacrificed temporarily by rejecting all but 
three makes in order that by standardizing 
patterns new machines might be more rapidly 
built, and repairs more expeditiously effected. 
Of dirigibles France had thirty-one. Eng- 
land had 800 airplanes at the outset and 15 
dirigibles; Austria 350 planes and 8 small 
dirigibles. 

While specific figures were naturally not 
given out by the belligerent countries, the 
common estimate was that in 191 7, with the 
exception of Austria, each of these countries 
had from 8,000 to 10,000 airplanes in service. 
In April of that year the United States 
entered the war. Its people and statesmen 
in power had observed for three and a half 
years the value of aircraft in war, and their 
rapid multiplication in Europe. Yet we 
entered upon the conflict equipped with one 
dirigible and perhaps six effective airplanes. 
The situation was the more discreditable for 
that from the earliest days of the war a 
score or more of young Americans had fought 
in the French Flying Corps, winning laurels 
for themselves and their indifferent country. 



i59 



i6o 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




One of the hugeCaproni triplanes that is now in this country 



In the earlier days of the war the strategy 
of the air was largely a matter of individual 
initiative. Single flyers went up to spy out 
the enemy's lines, to locate his batteries, or 
to direct the fire of their own. They en- 
countered the savage fire of the anti-aircraft 
guns from below, but all through the war 
this was strangely ineffective. It is curious 
indeed what a number of wounds an airplane 
can survive. One exhibited in the Invalides 
showed over 400 hits and was still serviceable. 
With his ground guns thus largely ineffective 



tain Ball of the British Army. The latter 
flving over the German lines dropped tliis 
letter: 

Captain Immelman: 

I challenge you to a man-to-man fight to take place 
this afternoon at two o'clock. I will meet you over the 
German lines. Have your anti-aircraft guns withhold 
their fire, while we decide which is the better fman. 



The British guns will be silent. 



Bf 



Presently thereafter this answer was 
dropped from a German airplane: 



Immelman. 



the enemy would send up his own airmen to Captain Ball: 

drive off the intruder. Out of this grew up Your challenge is accepted. The guns will not inter- 

a system of single combats, of duels in the fere. I will meet you promptly at two. 

air which in time took on something of the 

form and ceremony of knightly 

combats in the days of chivalry. 

Airmen of the various armies 
came to have personal reputations 
for skill and daring. After down- 
ing five of their enemies they were 
known as "aces" and became 
marked characters. Some attained 
the distinction of bringing down 
as many as fifty of their foes be- 
fore themselves falling before one 
of greater luck or skill. These 
champions fell into the habit of 
challenging each other to combat. 
One famous instance may be de- 
scribed as typical. 

The parties^ to this duel were 
Captain Immelman of the Ger- 
man Army with a record of 51 
British planes downed, and Cap- 




A Senegalese battalion going into action in the great Somme offensive 



N A T IONS 



WAR 




d & Underwood 



A great German Zeppelin captured by the French on its return from a raid over London 



The word spread far and wide along the 
trenches on both sides. Tacitly all firing 
stopped as though the bugles had sung truce. 
Men left cover and clambered up on the top 
to watch the duel. Punctually both flyers 
rose from their lines and made their way down 
No-man's Land. Let an eye witness tell the 
story: 

From our trenches there were wild cheers for Ball. 
The Germans yelled just as vigorously for Immelman. 

The cheers from the trenches continued; the Ger- 
mans increased in volume; ours changed into cries of 
alarm. 

Ball, thousands of feet above us and only a speck in 
the sky, was doing the craziest things imaginable. He 
was below Immelman and was apparently making no 
effort to get above him, thus gaining the advantage of 




© Underwood & Underwood 
1 his tumbling mass oi rums is but one ol many such mementoes of German 
air raids on England 



position. Rather he was swinging around, this way 
and that, attempting, it seemed, to postpone the in- 
evitable. 

We saw the German's machine dip over preparatory 
to starting the nose dive. 

"He's gone now," sobbed a young soldier at my side, 
for he knew Immelman's gun would start its raking 
fire once it was being driven straight down. 

Then in a fraction of a second the tables were turned. 
Before Immelman's plane could get into firing position, 
Ball drove his machine into a loop, getting above his 
adversary and cutting loose with his gun and smashing 
Immelman by a hail of bullets as he swept by. 

Immelman's airplane burst into flames and dropped. 
Ball, from above, followed for a few hundred feet and 
then straightened out and raced for home. He settled 
down, rose again, hurried back, and released a huge 
wreath of flowers, almost directly over the spot where 
Immelman's charred body was being 
lifted from a tangled mass of metal. 
Four days later Ball too was killed. 

But this sort of fighting soon 
went out of vogue. Gallant, 
chivalric, romantic it may have 
been but it led to no military ad- 
vantage. The airmen began ope- 
rating in squadrons, each side 
striving to prevent the other from 
passing the battle lines. Heavier 
machines appeared, and increased 
in numbers until, toward the end 
of the third year, planes carrying 
tons of explosives and crews of 
eight men were not unusual. Raids 
were made in force. The French 
dropped bombs on Stuttgart, 
Treves and Saarbruck. The Brit- 
ish attacked from the air the 
Zeppelin works at Lake Con- 



l62 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Escadrille No. i, or as it is generally known, "the Squadron of th 
famous ol the French escadrille 5 dc chaise 

stance, and Krupps' great cannon factories 
at Essen. In the spring of 1916 British, 
French and Belgian bomb-droppers [raided 
the German submarine bases at Ostend and 
Zeebrugge. The assailants declared that 
they could see that heavy damage was done. 
The Germans ridiculed the claim, and by 
the exercise of the powers of the censor 
prevented any precise information from leak- 
ing to the world outside. That is one of 




British tank among the palm trees. Somehow it doesn't seem to fit in 
with tropic ideas of warfare, nevertheless it is proving its usefulness 
with the British forces operating in the East. 



the difficulties of telling 
the story of the war 
in the air prior to the 
restoration of peace. 
The damage done by 
the Allies' planes was 
done at points far 
within the enemy's 
lines whence the truth 
could by no possibility 
escape to the outside 
world. Germany sys- 
tematically suppressed 
or falsified the facts 
concerning these raids, 
no less in order to 
avoid depressing her 
own people, than in 
unwillingness that the 
Allies should know the 
extent of their suc- 
cesses. The policy was 
not peculiar to the Teutons. London tried 
with equal zeal, but less success, to conceal 
the facts as to German raids on that city. 

These raids, begun in 191 5, were continued 
systematically throughout the war. Under- 
taken at first by Zeppelins they were later 
pursued by airplanes, as many as 23 having 
participated in one in 1917. From a military 
point of view they were singularly barren of 
results, for while London was full of barracks, 
warehouses, munition works, docks, 
ships, railway junctions and other 
targets of military importance, it was 
the rarest thing for a bomb to fall on 
any of these. As a rule they dropped 
into crowded residence districts, or 
among theatres, hotels and schools. 
The sum total of damage done to 
property and life was impressive. 
Forty-one raids were recorded up to 
March, 1917, with total casualties of 
more than 500 civilians slain. But 
the individual raid, in the face of the 
daily losses at the front was not terri- 
fying. It was, however, enraging to 
the British because the victims were 
in such numbers women or children 
and the method of inflicting the in- 
juries seemed not war but barbarism. 
Undoubtedly the raids greatly stim- 
ulated enlistments while the British 
were still raising their armies by 
the voluntary system, and there- 
after kept the British blood very 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



163 



much up to fighting 
heat. 

In a rapid sketch of 
this titanic conflict there 
is not adequate space 
for a complete story of 
the War in the Air. 
Nor indeed is the mo- 
ment propitious when 
all the belligerents are 
stealthily concealing 
alike their achievements 
and losses in that hither- 
to uninvaded element. 
But enough has been 
made known to stir the 
fighting blood of all 
peoples. Every nation 
to-day is struggling for 
preeminence aloft. The 
youth of the United 
States have flocked to 
the call of the country 

for aviators until the government is fairly 
swamped with enlistments. Congress ap- 
propriated #640,000,000 for aeronautics in its 
first war bill, and the sum has been raised to 
above a billion since. The Yankee boys who 
enlisted in the French flying corps while the 
United States was still a neutral, have come 




Sapworth plane, used by the French and English for reconnaissance work, mounted with 
a machine gun forward which fires through the propeller. It makes between 90 and 100 
miles an hour 

to the kopjes of German East Africa. 
Peoples that scarcely knew whether Serbia 
was in Europe or Asia rushed to arms as the 
result of the assassination of Austria's Arch- 
duke, and men to whom Belgium meant no 
more than Oonalaska tore at each other's 
throats on the banks of the Yellow Sea or in 



back under their own flag and are flying over the depths of the Kamerunian forests. Guns 
the fields of Flanders, or teaching novices on roared at Kiaou Chau because politicians at 
the flying fields scattered over our own land. Westminster or Wilhelmstrasse pulled the 

The navy of the air, like the older navy of strings, 
the sea, has become a favorite service 
for the young American, and it will 
breed its Paul Jones, its Farragut and 
its Dewey as opportunity offers. It 
is apparent that the earlier stages of 
individual initiative in the air are 
past. We are coming to have squad- 
rons and fleets with general com- 
manders. The craft are getting 
heavier, mounting more guns, carrying 
larger crews. The parallel to the de- 
stroyers, cruisers and battleships of 
the sea service is already furnished by 
the varying grades of air service. 
But much as it has done, the Fourth 
Arm of the Service is still in its 
infancy. 

It was a roaring chorus that was 
touched off when the first guns 
opened at Liege. Its echoes rumbled 
and reverberated from Tsing-Tau Effect of Japanese heavy guns on the German fortress of Kiaou Chau 




164 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



War is a Pandora's box. Open it and none 
can tell the number of the deadly ills that will 
fly out. When the United States went to 
war with Spain the first act accomplished 
was the occupation of a group of islands in 
far-off Asiatic waters — the Philippines. We 
went to war to end the pretensions of Spain 
to being an American power, and the first 
thing we did was to make ourselves an Asiatic 
power. Europe went to war over Belgium 
and fought it out in Mesopotamia, Armenia, 
China and the dark forests of Africa. 

Germany had widespread colonies. Most- 
ly they had been obtained after the other 
powers which took the lead in colonizing had 
glutted their appetites and as a result the 
German outposts were rather of speculative 
than actual value. But such as they were 
the parent country was speedily shorn of 
them. With the German navy cooped up in 
its impregnable refuges no aid could be sent 
to these outlying colonies. They easily fell 
a prey to neighboring members of the En- 
tente. 

It is needless to describe the campaigns by 
which the Germans were utterly stripped of 



their colonial possessions. The blows of the 
Allies fell fast, and were of irresistible force. 
The colonies to go first were the insular pos- 
sessions in the Pacific which were speedily 
taken by the colonial troops of Australia and 
New Zealand — destined later, in connection 
with the Canadians, to win fame for their 
prowess at Galhpoli and in Flanders under 
the nickname of "The Anzacs." Japan aided 
in stripping Germany of her Asiatic insular 
possessions, most of which were turned over 
to Australia, though some naval bases, like 
Tsing-Tau, were held by the subjects of the 
Mikado. British and French troops together 
took Togoland on the north shore of the Gulf 
of Guinea. Southwest Africa was overrun 
by the Boers under General Botha, who six- 
teen years before had headed the Boer rebel- 
lion against British suzerainty. Kamerun 
—larger than France and Germany combined 
— and German East Africa were better pre- 
pared for defense than any other outlying 
German Imperial power. They were heavily 
garrisoned by both German and native troops 
amply equipped, and were in communication 
with Germanv bv manv wireless stations. In 




Indian troops on their way to France 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 

V 



165 



:■■: 



4 *>* • ^y 



1 






^\> '<& ■ 



; ' : " V s a 



K, 



\ 







A Verdun aviation camp as seen trom a French aeroplane 



I'nderwoud & Underwood 



Kamerun the campaign for subjection was 
conducted by the British and French in uni- 
son. Complete success was attained bv the 
surrender of the last German post, Mora, 
February 18, 1916. In German East Africa 
the defenders had established fortified posts 
all over the country defended by about 50,000 
native troops with German officers. The 
rugged character of the terrain, the dense 
jungles, the narrow trails through the im- 
permeable undergrowth held easily by a single 
machine gun against all comers, gave the de- 
fense a notable advantage. The attack was 
left to Boer troops, led by General Smuts, 
who, like General Botha, had been a revolu- 
tionist during the Boer War. Late in the 
struggle Belgian and Portuguese colonists 
joined in the invasion from their neighboring 
territories. Before 191 7 had far advanced 
the last vestige of German power had van- 
ished from South Africa. 

The London Tablet gives a convenient summary of Ger- 
many's lost colonies, with their areas and dates of capture, 
in the following table: 

iqi± Colony Area sq. m. 

August 25 Togoland 33>7°° 

August 29 Samoa i.ooo 

September 1 1 Bismarck Islands 22,640 

September 24 New Guinea 70,000 

November 9 Kiaochow 200 



IQI5 

July 

IQl6 
February 

1917 

December 



Colony Ana sq. m. 
9 S. W. Africa 3 2 ->45° 

18 Kamerun 191,130 

1 East Africa 3 8 4> l8 ° 



The loyalty of the South African Boers to 
the Great Britain they had so recently fought 
with desperation was a sorry blow to the 
Germans, who had confidently looked for 
the rapid dissolution of the British Empire 
as a result of the war. But indeed one of 
the most important facts of that great con- 
flict was the convincing demonstration it 
gave of the great power and cohesiveness of 
the British Empire and the loyalty of even 
the most distant colonies to the mother 
country. Prior to this war not only did 
Britain's enemies hope, but her friends grave- 
ly feared, that any serious danger to her 
far-flung empire would be at once attended 
by the revolt of some of its colonies seek- 
ing independence. Such an event was con- 
fidently looked for by the Teutonic powers, 
and they employed every possible method 
of intrigue to arouse rebellion in such col- 
onies as seemed promising for that end. 
A brief rebellion was indeed stirred up in 
British South Africa among a few of the 



1 66 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



Boers still nursing the grievance of their won the highest plaudits for their soldierly 
defeat sixteen years earlier. But it enlisted qualities. 

the support of but few, even of that people, The most serious break in the record of 

and was in fact put down by Boer troops and British loyalty occurred in Ireland. The 
Boer generals. Like 
efforts to incite rebel- 
lion in Egypt proved 
utterly futile. While it 
is known that the Teu- 
tons relied greatly upon 
arousing revolution in 
India, and indeed 
planned their southern 
drive in Asia Minor 
with this end in view, 
no serious outbreak ever 
became known to the 
world. It is a curious 
fact that the one case of 
insurrection in India 
was "made in America. " 
It was the uprising of 
a number of returned 
emigrants who had been 
"seen" by German con- 
suls at various ports and 
encouraged to foment 
riots. It will be re- 
called, too, that the 
revolution in Russia was 
largely spurred on by 
returning Russians from 
New York who had been 
schooled and subsidized 
by German agents. At 
the height of the Ger- 
man advance southward 
there was apparent a 
certain degree of ner- 
vousness in British 
comments on the Indian 
situation. But this 
wholly disappeared as 
the year wore on. 

The record of Aus- 
tralia, New Zealand, and 
Canada in the war was 
one of unqualified loy- 
alty, enthusiasm, and 
sacrifice. The Anzacs, 
as the soldiers of these 
colonies were called, set the high-water Irish question is one that Great Britain has 
mark for bravery and efficiency in the British ever with her and that many hold will not 
lines. Volunteers all — for the conscription be settled except by granting complete inde- 
in England did not extend to the colonies — pendence to the Irish, a majority of whom 
they came in ever- increasing numbers and are intolerant of British dominion. At the 




: " $6»*/2f^i. J *f 



J 



Flight Sub-Lieutenant X. A. J. Wameford, R.N., is pictured hete destroying a Zeppelin 
near Ghent by dropping a bomb from his plane above. Warneford was killed a few days 
later 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



167 




I he capture ot Mafia Island, hast Africa. 1 roups arc seen landing at Kissimani Beach 



moment war broke out Parliament had 
passed an Irish home rule bill; the Protestants 
of Ulster had armed themselves and threat- 
ened to resist its enforcement by arms; some 
British officers in high command had laid 
down their swords rather than coerce the 
Ulsterites, and many others had threatened 
to do likewise should the moment of action 
arrive. The homerulers outside of Ulster, 
taking the cue of their adversaries, also 
armed and drilled for action. The outbreak 
of war stopped for the moment this threat- 
ened civil war. 

The discontent of Ireland, however, was 
not allayed. Though a great majority of 
the Irish people sympathized with the 
Allies the irreconcilable faction led bv the 



Sinn Fein Society, who believe that Ireland 
should be free and independent, seized upon 
the moment to plot a secession from Britain. 
Undoubtedly both moral and material aid was 
given by Germany. A picturesque figure 
in the revolutionary movement was Sir 
Roger Casement, an Irishman who had 
achieved prominence in the British consular 
service, and had been rewarded for his es- 
pecial efficiency by a pension and a title. 
Despite these honors Casement held himself 
an Irishman rather than an Englishman. 
The war had hardly begun before he visited 
the United States trying to raise funds for 
an Irish revolutionary movement. Thence 
he went to Germany, worked without suc- 
cess trying to get Irish recruits for the Ger- 




East African troops forming a hollow square at the capture of Mafia Island 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



man arms in the prison camps — narrowly es- ture for the ship and for a considerable de- 
caping lynching at the hands of the prisoners tachment of her men which merits a more 
— and ended by getting the Germans to detailed telling than could be given it in the 
finance an expedition to stir up rebellion in chapter on the naval operations of the war. 
Ireland. In a sub- 
marine accompanied by 
a cruiser laden with 
arms, Casement ap- 
peared off" the coast of 
Ireland. In some way 
his enterprise had be- 
come known to the 
British government and 
he was trapped while 
landing. The cruiser 
was sunk. The news of 
his capture set off the 
revolutionary fires he 
had laid, and for days 
Dublin was in the hands 
of the rioters. But the 
outbreak was ruthlessly 
suppressed. Its im- 
mediate leaders — four- 
teen in all — were sum- 
marily executed, and 
Casement, after a suit- 
able trial, was hanged in 
Pentonville yard. 
Among radical Irish 
patriots much sympathy 
was manifested for Case- 
ment and even for Ger- 
many. A meeting of 
that element in New- 
York — of course before 
the United States had 
entered the war — 
adopted curious resolu- 
tions thanking "the 
government of Germany 
for extending to Ireland 
as fast as the present 
military situation will 
permit the same kind of 
aid as was rendered to 
the infant American re- 
public by France." 




Sharply upon the out- 
break of the war, and 
before the Japanese could blockade her 
harbor, the German cruiser Emden, Captain 
Miiller, slipped out of the port of Tsingtau 
and made for the open Pacific. There fol- 
lowed a record of achievement and adven- 



Ari aerial duel within sight of Ypres. A German aeroplane, flying high over ^ pies, was 
attacked by four British biplanes, and in spite of the heavy shrapnel fire from German 
guns the British machines closed around their quarry and forced it to the ground 



The Emden mounted ten 4^-inch guns 
for a primary battery and had a speed of 
twenty-three knots. She was one of the 
few powerful German ships out of the im- 
mediate grasp of the British navy at the 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



1 69 




South African field artillery embarking on tile auxiliary cruiser Armadale Castle 



outbreak of the war, and was undoubtedly 
in constant communication with the German 
admiralty during the parlous days that pre- 
ceded the declaration. Her orders when 
she slipped out of the German naval station 
in China that August morning were to make 
all speed to join the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau 
and Nurnberg in the South Pacific, but some- 
where in that waste of waters the wireless 
messengers overhauled her and ordered her 
to the Indian Ocean there to sink, burn and 
destroy such ships of Germany's enemies as 
could be discovered. . 

In this engrossing and helpful occupation 
business was brisk at first. There was no 



warning out of the presence of the raider in 
those seas. There was no fighting of course. 
The victims were all unarmed and hove to 
at the first summons. Usually they were 
sunk until the Emden would get so full of 
prisoners that they would have to liberate 
a prize to take them to land. Coal, food, all 
necessaries they obtained from their prizes. 
"The ships seemed to come of themselves 
to us," said Lieutenant Mucke later in telling 
of his voyage. 

But the men of the Emden were not a bit 
averse to fighting. They speedily picked up 
23 ships, many of which were sunk, while a 
few were held to carry the hosts of prisoners. 




A small portion of the British army in Egypt. They are Australians 



170 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



Capt. von Muller who commanded the raider 
— and who later perished with her — was not 
the type of German that the war, and par- 
ticularly the submarine war, later developed. 
He was punctilious about caring for his 
prisoners, and the ships he captured were not 
"spurlos versenkt" (sunk without traces) as 
a German envoy to Argentina later recom- 
mended should be done with the ships of 
that friendly nation. When taking prizes 
became monotonous the Emden turned shore- 



' 



to the chivalry and humanity of the German 
commander. But the war was then young. 

It was early on Wednesday morning that the Emden, 
with a dummy fourth funnel and flying the British 
ensign, in some inexplicable fashion sneaked past the 
French torpedo boat Mosquet, which was on patrol 
duty outside, and entered the outer harbor of Penang. 
Across the channel leading to the inner harbor lay the 
Russian cruiser Jemtchug. Inside were the French 
torpedo boats Fronde and Pislolel and the torpedo boat 
destroyer D' Iberville. The torpedo boats lay beside 









A closeup of a fatal accident ot one ot the Allied planes. 1 his was due to the motor stopping before the machine 

of the ground 



well clear 



ward and raided Madras, where her shots 
set fire to the great oil tanks that for days 
after illuminated with their blaze the whole 
city. 

Shortly after this the officers of the Emden 
heard that a French cruiser and several 
enemy vessels were in harbor at Penang, a 
considerable port of 250,000 inhabitants. 
The report was inaccurate, the cruiser being 
Russian, but the adventurers determined to 
run into the port and try what game might 
be bagged by a surprise. A London Times 
correspondent, in Penang at the time, gives 
an eye-witness account of the adventure. 
It is notable that the correspondent, though 
an Englishman, bears abundant testimony 



the long Government wharf, while the D' Iberville rode 
at anchor between two tramp steamers. 

At full speed the Emden steamed straight for the 
Jemtchug and the inner harbor. In the semi-darkness 
of the early morning the Russian took her for the 
British cruiser Yarmouth, which had been in and out 
two or three times during the previous week, and did 
not even "query" her. Suddenly, when less than 400 
yards away, the Emden emptied her bow guns into the 
Jemtchug and came on at a terrific pace, with all the 
guns she could bring to bear in action. When she had 
come within 250 yards she changed her course slightly, 
and as she passed the Jemtchug poured two broadsides 
into her, as well as a torpedo, which entered the engine 
room but did comparatively little damage. 

The Russian cruiser was taken completely by sur- 
prise and was badly crippled before she realized what 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



171 



was happening. The fact that her Captain was spend- 
ing the night ashore and that there was no one on 
board who seemed capable of acting energetically 
completed the demoralization. She was defeated be- 
fore the battle began. However, her men finally 
manned the light guns and brought them into action. 
In the meantine the Emden was well inside the inner 
harbor and among the shipping. She saw the French 
torpedo boats there, and apparently realized at once 
that unless she could get out before they joined in the 
action her fate was sealed. At such close quarters 
(the range was never more than 450 yards) their tor- 
pedoes would have proved deadly. Accordingly, she 
turned sharply and mide for the Jemtckug once more. 



and was coming in at top speed. The Emden immedi- 
ately opened up on her, thereby causing her to turn 
around in an endeavor to escape. It was too late. 
After a running fight of twenty minutes the Mosquet 
seemed to be hit by three shells simultaneously and 
sank very rapidly. The German had got a second 
victim. 

It was here that the chivalrous bravery of the Em- 
den s captain which has been many times in evidence 
throughout her meteoric career was again shown. If 
the French boats were coming out, every moment was 
of priceless value to him. Nevertheless, utterly disre- 
garding this he stopped, lowered boats and picked up the 
survivors from the Mosquet before steaming on his way. 




South African volunteers arriving at Cape Town 



All the time she had been in the harbor the Russian 
had been bombarding her with shrapnel, but, owing 
to the notoriously bad marksmanship prevalent in the 
Czar's navy, had succeeded for the most part only 
in peppering every merchant ship within range. As 
the Emden neared the Jemtchug again both ships were 
actually spitting fire. The range was practically point 
blank. Less than 150 yards away the Emden passed 
the Russian, and as she did so, torpedoed her amidships 
striking the magazine. There was a tremendous deto- 
nation, paling into insignificance by its volume all the 
previous din; a heavy black column of smoke arose 
and the Jemtchug sank in less than ten seconds, while 
the Emden steamed behind the point to safety. 

No sooner had she done so, however, than she sighted 
the torpedo boat Mosquet, which had heard the firing 



The English here now say of him admiringly, "He 
played the game." 

The Emden should not have been able to 
escape as she did unharmed from this ad- 
venturous raid. In the harbor were lying 
a French destroyer, D'lberville and two 
French torpedo boats, 'besides the small one 
which she demolished. From none of the 
three former ships was a shot fired. The 
conditions were ideal for them to have used 
their torpedoes as the raider was at all times 
within close and easy range — at one time 
within two hundred yards. It would appear 
that they could have overwhelmed her by 



172 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Bringing up a heavy gun for action in German East Atrica 



a concerted use of their torpedoes, which 
eye-witnesses declare could have been 
launched without moving the ships a foot. 
After Penang the raider resumed her cruis- 
ing in the adjacent waters. The hue and 
cry was out for her, and English, French and 
Japanese warships were hot upon her trad. 
But luck was with her for about two weeks. 




Supplies being brought up by the British in British East Africa, 
thirty oxen being used here to draw the wagon 



when her end came suddenly. November 
9th she was in the offing of the Cocos Islands, 
an outlying dependency of Great Britain. 
Here was a wireless station which Capt. 
Mliller determined to destroy, lest it betray 
his presence in those waters. Accordingly 
Lieut. Mucke was sent ashore for that 
purpose. Let us tell the subsequent events in 
his own language. 

On November 9th I left the Emden in order to de- 
stroy the wireless plant on the Cocos Island. I had 
fifty men, four machine guns, about thirty rifles. 
Just as we were about to destroy the apparatus it re- 
ported, "Careful, Emden near." The work of destruc- 
tion went smoothly. The wireless operators said: 
"Thank God! It's been like being under arrest day 
and night lately." Presently the Emden signalled to 
us, "Hurry up." I pack up, but simultaneously waiis 
the Emden s siren. I hurry up to the biidge, see the 
flag "Anna" go up. That means "Weigh anchor." 
We ran like mad into our boat, but already the Emden s 
pennant goes up, the battle flag is raised, they fire 
from starboard. 

The enemy is concealed by the island and therefore 
not to be seen. But I see the shells strike the water. 
To follow and catch the Emden is out of the question; 
she's going twenty knots, I only four with my steam 
pinnace. Therefore I turn back to land, raise the flag, 
declare German laws of war in force, seize all arms, set 
up my machine guns on shore in'order to guard against 
a hostile landing. Then I run again in order to observe 
the fight. From the splash of the shells it looked as 
if the enemy had fifteen centimetre guns, bigger there- 
fore than the Emden s. He fired rapidly but poorly. 
It was the Australian cruiser Sydney. 

The Sydney was in fact a heavier and speed- 
ier vessel than the Emden and the battle 
was emphatically one-sided. Nevertheless 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



173 








An artillery engagement in British East Africa. Naval guns on field mountings are being used 



the German ship fought well. Three times 
in the early part of the action she hulled the 
Britisher, shot to pieces her foremast range 
finder, wrecked her after-control platform, 
and started a fire between her decks. Ap- 
parently this swift execution was done be- 
cause the German gunners were more skill- 
ful at long range. Because of her superior 
speed the Sydney soon came to close quarters 
and when she was able to turn on her full 
weight of metal she made short work of the 
enemy. In a little more than an hour and 
forty minutes, after racing over 56 miles of 
sea, the German was driven ashore on the 
North Keeling and there lay with the flames 
pouring from every port, with more than 120 
of her crew slain and the rest wounded or 
dazed with the shock of conflict. The ves- 
sel was hopelessly wrecked but her survivors 
were tenderly cared for on the English ship 
and taken into the harbor of Colombo. 

Lieutenant Mucke being marooned on 
shore could not see the end of the conflict. 
He was in doubt whether the Emden had 
triumphed, had escaped or had been sunk. 
He was ashore in a British possession, though 
the settlers were so few that his landing party 
of a few more than forty men was quite suffi- 
cient to control the situation. Nor was there 
any great hostility manifested by the inhabi- 
tants. One Englishman who stood on the 
roof of a house with Mucke and saw the two 
fighting ships disappear below the horizon 
turned to the German with a smile and said: 
"Now, Captain, won't you have a game of 



Upon Mucke, however, the responsibilities 
of the situation weighed heavily. He had no 
desire to stay on the Cocos Islands until pos- 
sibly the Sydney might return and make him 
and all his men prisoners. Accordingly see- 
ing a three-masted schooner, the Ayesha 









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tennis wi 



ith 



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<' Underwood & Underwood 
General Smuts, commander of the British forces in East 
Africa, making observations from the top of an armored car 



174 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




An armored French plane, which will make well over 120 miles an hour, just about to start on a flight 




Copyright by International News Service 
Algerians in street fighting 



lying at anchor he commandeered it and de- 
manded eight weeks' supplies, which were 
cheerfully furnished by the English residents. 
In this craft, armed with the four machine 
guns he had taken ashore, he set forth on an 
adventurous voyage which finally brought 
him to Hodeida on the shores of the Red Sea. 
The populace were Arabs, under the rule of 
the Turk, and therefore allies of the Ger- 
mans. By their aid the wanderers reached the 
Bagdad Railway and were ultimately carried 
in triumph to Europe. At the Oasis of Maan, 
nearly 600 miles south of Damascus, the party 
was met by a correspondent of the Berlin 
Tageblatt, to whom Mucke recounted some 
of the adventures of their voyage through 
Asiatic straits and seas. Some extracts from 
his statement will be of interest. His study 
of course had been to avoid waters likely to be 
frequented by Allied warships and to seek 
only neutral ports for refuge. But what 
ports were neutral? He and his fellows, as 
they drifted along through dead calms, or 
were battered by savage monsoons, cruised 
almost at random for three months before he 
learned that Tsing-Tao, which he had first 
chosen, had fallen into English hands. Then 
he went to Padang, a dependency of Holland. 
By this time they were beginning to suffer 
for lack of water and clothing. "With 




Few realize that there were troops of the Mongolian race on the battlefields of Europe. Here is a column of 
Japanese soldiers from French Cochin-China marching to their camp at Versailles 



176 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Belgian native troops (Askaris) operating in German East Afri 



ited from the various Congo tribes 



water," said Mucke, "we had to go sparingly; 
each man received three glasses daily. When 
it rained all possible receptacles were placed 
and the main sail was spread over the cabin 
roof to catch the rain. The whole crew went 
about naked in order to spare our clothing 
which was already in rags. Toothbrushes 
were long ago out of sight. One razor made 
the rounds of the crew. The entire ship had 
one precious comb." 

The authorities at Padang though neutral 
were not overfriendly. At first they wanted 
to intern the Ayesha for the period of the war, 
but Mucke insisted on his right to supplies 
needful to take him to the next neutral port, 
and a period of sanctuary in which to refit. 
He declared the Ayesha a warship and pointed 
to his four machine guns to prove it. The 
authorities were oversqueamish as to the 
amount of supplies that might be taken. 
They refused clothes or even toothbrushes on 
the ground that to permit them to be taken 
would be a breach of neutrality. According- 
ly after twenty-four hours the raiders put out 
to sea little better accoutred than when they 
entered the port. They had been out only 
24 hours when they encountered a German 
freighter, the Choising. 

"Great was our joy now," said Mucke 
later. "I had all my men come on deck and 
line up for review. The fellows hadn't a rag 
on. Thus in nature's garb we gave three 
cheers for the German flag on the Choising. 
The men on the Choising told us afterwards, 
''We couldn't make out what that meant, 
those stark naked fellows all cheering." 

Mucke thereupon took over the Choising, 



sinking the Ayesha, which had borne them 
through so many perils. He turned his new 
ship's prow toward Aden and the Red Sea, 
believing that in this way he could get into 
Arabia and thence to Turkey and home. On 
the voyage he had innumerable narrow es- 
capes from detection by Allied cruisers, but 
finally made his way to land at Hodeida, a 
small Arabian port north of Aden. Here he 
made friends with the Arabs and with officials 
of the Turkish government, who welcomed 
him and his men. On the Kaiser's birthday 
the Germans paraded together with the 
Turkish troops and international rejoicings 
were held. 

But this was by no means the goal of the 
German force. They hesitated long whether 
to make their way northward over the burn- 
ing sands of the Arabian desert, or to put to 
sea in lighter craft than their steamer and 
evade detection by making their way through 
waters close to the coast. They finally de- 
termined upon the latter course and on March 
14, 1915, two months after landing at Hode- 
ida, they put to sea again in two large sam- 
buks. Three days later one of the boats, 
holding twenty-eight men, capsized. The 
water was full of sharks and of reefs. The 
men were afraid of the former and as they 
climbed on the bottom of the upturned boat 
it pounded on the latter so that it bade 
fair to go to pieces. To add to their perplex- 
ities a band of Arabs appeared upon the shore 
and for a moment the men doubted whether 
they were friends or foes. They proved to 
be friends and the day following, after all the 
Germans had safely been brought ashore, 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



177 



they rendered signal aid in diving for the lost 
property. These men of the desert, curiously 
enough, were men of the sea as well, and they 
dived so skilfully that they even brought up 
between four of them the machine guns which 
had gone to the bottom. Mucke had now 
but one boat and for a time it looked as 
though he must take to the hard pathway 
through the desert. Luckily a sub-official of 
the Turkish government turned up after a 
time and succeeded in getting a boat of fifty- 
four tons. With this the adventurers sailed 
north for three days to Lith. Here they 
heard that the British had word of their 
presence in the Red Sea and had sent three 
cruisers to intercept them. Accordingly they 
left the sea and took to the desert. 

Across burning sands, and more than 
once in peril from hostile tribesmen, Mucke 
and his fellows trudged on northward by 
easy marches until they reached Damascus. 



All was for them bright and cheerful after 
their prolonged hardships. At every town 
they were greeted and feasted by partisans 
of the Kaiser. The further north they went 
the more enthusiastic the greeting. At 
Haidar-Pasha, the last point on the Asiatic 
soil, they were warmly greeted by representa- 
tives of the Turkish and German govern- 
ments and military and naval forces. In the 
forefront of the welcomers stood Admiral 
Souchon of the German navy. To him ad- 
vanced Lieutenant von Mucke, followed by 
his forty-nine men now in fresh trim sailor's 
uniforms. He lowered his sword to the 
Admiral. 

"Beg to report most obediently, Herr Ad- 
miral, landing corps of the Emden forty-jour 
men, four officers, one surgeon." 

That was all! A mere report as though it 
was all in the day's business! 




French Colonial troops from Indo-China preparing a meal. Note they are wearing steel helmets 



CHAPTER VII 



AGAIN THE WEST — THE FRENCH OFFENSIVE IN CHAMPAGNE THE BRITISH OPERA- 
TIONS ABOUT LOOS AND LENS — THE HISTORIC BATTLE OF VERDUN NATURE OF 

THE FORTRESS — BOASTS OF THE GERMANS "THEY SHALL NOT PASS " — THE ROAD 

TO VERDUN FRENCH VICTORY HEAVY LOSSES OF GERMANS BATTLE OF THE 

SOMME FIGHTING AT PERONNE — THE BRITISH TANKS BATTLE OF ARRAS 




'E T us turn again to the 
war in the west; to those 
trench-scarred and shell- 
pitted fields and forests 
of France where the struggle 
began, where it was most fierce- 
ly waged, and where, at least 
up to the early months of 1918, 
the combatants were so closely 
matched that the 
shift of a few hun- 
dred yards in posi- 
tion was celebrated 
as a notable victory 
or defeat. In telling 
the story of the 
operations in this 
section we are virtu- 
ally restricted to descriptions of the striking or 
picturesque features of a series of battles which 
at the end of months and even years had re- 
sulted merely in a continuous deadlock. The 
enemies facing each other in the trenches of 
France had spent months of futile watching 
and sniping, with occasional volcanic outbursts 
of artillery or sudden raids from one side or 
the other. The principal fighting in that sum- 
mer of 1915 was in the East, and the Russians 
and Italians were giving the Austrians so 
serious a time that the Kaiser felt the need of 
turning all his force and energy to his Ally's 
aid. So things lagged in the West until Sir 
John French and General JofFre deter- 
mined that it was time to stir up the sleeping 
dogs in the boche trenches and make the 
Kaiser recall some of his fighting men from 
the East. Accordingly offensives were begun 
simultaneously by the French in Champagne 
and the British about Loos and Lens. 

These operations present a state of affairs 
not uncommon in this war. In them were 
engaged more than half a million men on 
each side. The losses were reckoned by the 



hundreds of thousands. The gains both of 
British and French were considerable — a true 
contribution to the work of slowly driving 
the invaders out of France. But neither of- 
fensive was completely successful. It neither 
destroyed the German army, nor did it pierce 
the German lines, though undoubtedly it 
pushed the foe back very materially. As a 
result these operations have been over- 
shadowed by others taking place synchro- 
nously, and particularly by the Battle of Ver- 
dun which began shortly after the Allied offen- 
sive had spent its strength. 

Eye-witnesses declare that there was never 
a scene so fit to set man's pulses leaping as 
that on September 25, 1915, when along a fif- 
teen mile front Castlenau's poilus in the Cham- 
pagne district, singing and praying, laughing 
and swearing, shouting the Marseillaise or 
the Camagnole went over the top. It was a 
magnificent charge and at once the Germans 
were pushed out of their first rank of trenches. 
What the strength of these positions was may 
be indicated by a description written to the 
London Times by one of the conquerors: 

One striking sign of their confidence was the number 
and size of the underground refuges, more than 20 
feet deep, which they had laboriously carved out of 
the solid chalk all along the line. In one small sector 
there were 150 of them, strongly buttressed with stout 
timber props, and fitted with double rows of berths 
for a large number of men. This solidity is typical of 
the whole scheme of the defenses. In that twenty miles 
of front there are hundreds and hundreds of miles of 
trenches and light railways. The line is so irregular, 
and so broken up by salients, big and little, that al- 
most everywhere it could be defended by lateral as 
well as by direct frontal fire." 

Powerful as the position had been it was 
carried by the assailants who pushed on with 
cheers beyond the trenches to the German 
field guns in the rear. Whole batteries were 
taken and in many instances turned on the 



i79 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



| ■■ 







H@tf***« 







French infantry going over the top through their own wire entanglements into No Man's Land in an attack on a German trench 

on the Champagne front 



shattered ranks of their former owners. By 
night along the 15 mile front the advance 
had been carried at least 2^0 miles. Nine 
guns, it was said, had been taken for every 
mile of front and for each yard an unwounded 
prisoner. Later the enemy's lines were actu- 
ally pierced but with a gap too narrow for use. 
For a moment it looked as though de Castle- 
nau had accomplished the great object of the 
year of cruel fighting and had broken the 
iron wall that the Germans had thrown 
across France, but fate was against him and 
the slight breach was impracticable. 

While the French were thus pressing the 
offensive in Champagne, the French and 
British together under the joint command of 
General Foch were fighting to the northward 
along Vimy Ridge — where more savage bat- 



tles were to be fought eighteen months later' 
and on the La Bassee-Loos line with a view 
to taking the railway center at Lens, and en- 
tering upon the plain of the Scheldt. Notable 
advances were attained though not the full 
purpose of the movement. There was a new 
bombardment of the hapless city of Ypres. 
The heaviest fighting was in the neighbor- 
hood of the village of Loos which was taken 
by a division of Highlanders. The story is 
told that just as these Kilties were about to 
leave their trenches they were attacked with 
gas and hesitated briefly. Piper Laidlaw 
sprang to the top of the parapet and under 
full fire marched up and down playing "All 
the Blue Bonnets are over the Border," pip- 
ing his comrades over the top until all were 
in the charge and he fell desperately wounded. 








i \ "*>A 


'<C 




> B 

* 


- 


"&*. 

3 


* v%, 


■» 


V 




^ ; 


1 



The attacking party is seen in the middle ot No Man's Land < 
yards trom the French trench heavily protected by barbed wire. 
Germans and returned with 4 prisonus. 



xposed to the German fire. I he enemy's line was about 90 
They made the trip in less than 4 minutes, killed several 






THE NATIONS AT WAR 



181 




Here the troops are seen entering the German trenches, having carried their coup de main through to the vital moment. In 
the foreground a wounded French soldier is making his way back to the French lines 



There was seeming incapacity in the British 
leadership at Loos. All the earlier stages 
went against the Germans. They fell back 
before the Highlanders, abandoning the vil- 
lage and their supporting trenches, and re- 
treating until it seemed that Lens itself might 
fall — that Lens for the possession of which 
the Allies were still fighting two years later. 
But where were the British reserves? None 
came to the support of the Highlanders who 
had to be slowly and precariously withdrawn 
from'the advanced positions they had won. 
Five "days the battle raged but the success 
of the first dav was not paralleled, nor were 
its fruits wholly retained. None the less 
the battle of Loos was in its entirety a British 
victory. Sir John French, addressing his 
troops, declared that they had broken the 
enemy's lines along a front of 6,500 yards, 




had carried his reserve lines, and at one point 
pierced his last position. They had cap- 
tured fifty officers and 3,000 men together 
with 26 field guns and 40 machine guns. 
However the victory fell so far short of what 
might have been expected from trie initial 
successes that keen disappointment was felt 
in the country when full knowledge of the 
affair became general. Sir John French was 
recalled, made a peer and honored with a 
high command at home — but none the less 
disciplined. The losses had been heavy — 
for Fiench and British both in the neighbor- 
hood of 165,000 in both the Champagne 
and Loos battles, and for the Germans about 
200,000. After this clash the armies in that 
immediate section settled down to inactivity 
for nearly twelve months. 

Early in the following year, 1916, the scene 




French troops that participated in the attack shown above before they went over the top. At the right, in the German trench 
with a German prisoner who was hustled back to the French line to be questioned at the Commandant's Headquarters 



182 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



of active fighting shifted eastward and the 
historic battle of Verdun was begun. 

Verdun was a magnificent, a stimulating 
victory for the French, won at the cost of 
more than a year's steady fighting. But the 
triumph, once attained, only meant that the 
French had held what they started out with, 
while the Germans still held the lines by 
which the fortress was beleaguered. So with 
the later battle of the Somme — a British 
success, in which the enemy had been out- 
manoeuvred and outfought, their lines pierced 



to clinging to their trenches, and boasting 
of the number and strength of the lines of 
prepared defense behind them to which they 
might retreat in the event of defeat. 

Verdun, by the fierceness of the attack led 
by the Crown Prince, and the stubbornness 
and desperation of its defense under Generals 
Petain and Nivelle came to symbolize the 
French determination to yield not another 
inch to the invader. When the gray-green 
flood of German soldiers was pouring into 
France over every railroad and highway, 




German defenses taken by the British at Beaucourt. Barbed wire is used on all tronts 



and their defenses broken down. But the 
actual loss of ground was but slight in pro- 
portion to the amount of French territory 
held by the Germans. Only maps drawn 
to the very largest scale could show any 
distinction in the battle lines before and 
after the victory. 

Nevertheless the two years and more of 
fighting on the western front of which I pur- 
pose to tell in this chapter was distinctly 
encouraging to the Allies. It demonstrated 
that the Germans had lost the offensive and 
were unable to resume it. Those vainglo- 
rious legions that had swept irresistibly over 
Belgium and France in the fall of 1914 with 
cries of " Paris in three weeks ! " were reduced 



through violated neutral lands as well as 
by more legitimate routes, all Paris, dazed 
by the sudden collapse of such fortresses as 
Liege and Namur, said hopefully, "Look at 
Verdun. She will hold out!" 

Well. She did hold out. With the fourth 
year of the war more than half gone she is 
still holding out, drenched with blood of 
heroes on both sides; the ground for miles 
around plowed deep with shell pits and 
planted with the bodies of tens of thousands 
of the gallant dead. She holds out in grim 
defiance though she never really barred 
the way to Paris, for in those dark days of 
August the German army ignored the grim 
gray fortress hewn in the solid rock and, 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



»83 




From a drawing by George Mc Evov 
in this scene, so graphically portrayed by the artist, is shown the charging Canadian artillery as it passed ahead, taking 
trench line after trench line protected by the barrage of the great guns. This battery of field artillery plunged forward to 
new positions right behind the first lines and poured a devastating fire on the flying enemy. Messines Ridge will stand out 
in history as one of the greatest military achievements of all times 



184 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



leaving it to one side, marched on its errand 
doomed to disappointment. The Battle of 
the Marne sent the invaders flying back, 
but what they had done proved the worth- 
lessness of Verdun as a fortress. As a name, 
however, to designate the fifty miles or more 
of trenches which stretch out right and left 
from the ancient town and fortress in the 
rock, it has become symbolical of the most 
persistent assault and the most dogged 
resistance known to military history. Fate 
plays curious pranks with cities as well as 
with men. Verdun, until the German Crown 
Prince gave it immortality by dashing his 



works have been relegated to oblivion by 
modern high explosives. The citadel of 
Verdun he hewed out of a beetling cliff", blast- 
ing out redoubts and battlements, long cor- 
ridors, barracks, and assembly halls. Even 
an elevator was added by later engineers. 
But if that seemed something of an oddity 
in a fort its presence was atoned for by the 
fact that when war really befel Verdun all 
the guns were taken out of the old citadel. 
Their place was not there but far off in the 
trenches miles away from the city. The 
triumph of Vauban's engineering skill, in face 
of the German "Jack Johnsons," was con- 




First Aid station just back of the firing line; bringing in the wounded for immediate attention 

magnificent legions to pieces against its demned to more peaceful uses. Its unpreg- 

flame-tipped barriers, was famed chiefly for nable galleries sheltered the wounded brought 

its manufacture of sugared almonds and in from the real front. Its casements 

other confections much esteemed at French bricked up formed excellent ovens where 

weddings. Long after the war began and bread by the thousand loaves was baked for 

German shells were now and then dropping the army. Its corridors served for offices for 

in the streets of the quiet town the confec- the administration of the town and as stor- 

tioners went peacefully on with the manu- age places for the munitions of war to be 

facture of their "dragees," and even invented employed elsewhere. 

a bonbonniere, like the shell of a "French 75," Fame was thrust upon Verdun. It was 

which on occasion would vociferously explode not a point of great strategic importance, 

with a scattering hail of sugared almOnds. nor was it peculiarly advantageous as a 



The old fortress of Verdun, its citadel, was 
built in the days before engineers understood 
that soft earth is a more stubborn resistant 
than solid rock. It was built by Vauban, 



point about which to rally a defense. Its 
railroads were commanded from the very 
first by the German artillery, with the result 
that during the prolonged siege the supply 



most famous of military engineers, whose of the French army had to be by motor truck 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



185 




IfW 






H 



%; 



I 







B 
O 






1 86 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 






> t 







%IEI 



k 



• 



fMkW 



, 4 *,-.■>" 



infantry advancing behind a heavy barrage charging across "No Man's Land' 



along a road constructed especially for that 
purpose, and maintained by constant and 
unremitting attention. That transport serv- 
ice was one of the marvels of the war. But 
while many considerations seemed to justify 
the belief of the French High Command that 
Verdun might more profitably be left unde- 
fended to the German attack the Germans 
themselves put an end to any such pro- 
gramme. Their boasts of what they were 
going to do at Verdun roused in the French 
mind the determination that they should 
not do it. For home consumption Germany 
needed the prestige of having taken some 
great fortress in France. The enterprise 



was committed to the Crown Prince, the 
idol of the extreme militarists, a bit of a 
swashbuckler who had yet to show his mili- 
tary mettle. So his father, the Kaiser, gave 
him a few hundred thousand German lives 
to play with — a fair proportion of which he 
squandered fruitlessly. There was no doubt, 
however, in the mind of either father or son 
as to the outcome. In the center of Verdun — 
as in most cities of France — is a public square, 
or Place d'Armes. As a rule such spots with 
their historic buildings have been the favorite 
targets of the German guns. At Verdun, 
however, the artillery was especially in- 
structed to spare the Place, for there the 




The signal corps lollows close behind carrying signal fuses attached to their guns. They are thrown in the ail to inform the 

artillery in the rear how far the charging infantry have advanced 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



187 



Crown Prince was to receive the surrender 
of the city from its Mayor, and there later, 
the Kaiser himself was to reward his vic- 
torious son with an order of high merit. 
Neither ceremony has yet come off. For as 
a result of the braggart announcements of 
what was to be done the French determined 
that it should not be done. Verdun became 
the symbol of French defiance. " They shall 
not pass!" was the watchword of its defenders, 
and they made it good. 

There was fighting in the Argonne in the 



were hurriedly brought to join with troops 
from Ypres, the Somme, and the Aisne. 
Great guns in tremendous numbers, more 
than 3,000 according to report, and of appal- 
ling calibres had been concentrated as early 
as December, and prodigious piles of shells 
and bombs were stored at every place along 
the point where they would be needed. 
The concentration of the men began in Jan- 
uary and for a month or more they were 
held out of action, abundantly fed and 
equipped in every way for the triumphant 




Intense barrage fire set up by Allied artillery after infantry has reached its objective to prevent the enemy from making a coun- 
ter charge. At the extreme left is seen .a French machine gunner in action 



neighborhood of Verdun during the fall 
months of 191 5, but the direct frontal attack 
was begun by the Germans in February, 1916. 
The Crown Prince was in nominal command. 
Though there was growing doubt as to the 
military capacity of this eldest son of the 
Kaiser, political considerations made it im- 
perative that to him should fall the honor 
of some great victory — and no German then 
doubted that Verdun was to be the scene of 
a famous national triumph. There was 
every reason for Germany to anticipate suc- 
cess. The winter had checked operations 
in the Russian and Balkan theatres of war, 
and the veteran troops from those regions 



attack which their general confidently ex- 
pected. An order of the day issued by 
General von Daimling, found on a German 
prisoner, announced to his men that the de- 
cisive moment had come at last, and that 
their irresistible attack on Verdun would 
put an immediate end to the war. The plan 
for the attack which was to produce this 
tremendous result was that which has become 
typical in this war — a racking and crushing 
artillery fire, followed by an assault by in- 
fantry. With the French front once broken 
the Germans expected to close in on Verdun 
from behind, cutting off the French retreat 
and annihilating the French army. Had 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



the latter end been attained it would indeed 
have been a great step toward the conclusion 
of the war. 

Perhaps the French gave no thought to 
retreat. Nevertheless, the question of how 
to get their army away should disaster befall, 
and how to feed it and furnish it with fresh 
munitions and reinforcements was one of 
the utmost importance. At the outset there 
were about 550,000 men in the French army 
about Verdun, this number rising at times 
to as many as 750,000. To supply this enor- 
mous force there was but one railroad available, 
and that one at points exposed to the fire 
of the enemy. The Germans anticipated 
that the defenders would be severely handi- 
capped by this inadequacy of railroad trans- 
portation. So they would have been had 
not the French General Staff recognized the 
situation and met it by using the marvelous 
French highways, level and solid as a floor, 
for the organization of a system of transpor- 




tation by motor trucks that, bv its perfection 
and efficiency, aroused the admiration of all 
military critics. The transport service of 
an army is as important as its strategy or 
its spirit. In fact, neither can be maintained 
if there is failure or delay in bringing up 
reinforcements or munitions. 

The road the French built from St. Dizier 
to Verdun to keep their force of 750,000 men 
in food and munitions, to reenforce them 
and to carry away their wounded was a broad 
highway fifty miles long and every foot of it 
as crowded as Fifth Avenue at the matinee 
hour, or State Street, Chicago, within the 
loop, at the time for going home. The oper- 
ation of the road was marvelous. Even the 
London traffic officer might have learned 
something from it. Breaks and blockades 
could not be tolerated. For this highway 
was a great artery any damming of which 
would have given Verdun an apoplexy. 
Speeding eastward in single file with seldom 
a space of 100 feet between them were old 
Paris and London 'buses loaded with men, 
five ton trucks heavy laden with shells and 
explosives, cannon lumbering along on cater- 
pillar wheels and keeping far to one side that 
swifter vehicles might pass, empty ambu- 
lances going up to Death's factory for more 

freight, wagons 
loaded down with 
great sides and slabs 
of raw meat, and 
more soldiers and 
still more who look- 
ed down upon the re- 
turning ambulances 
heavy with 
ghastly freight, 
set their teeth 
more firmly 



With this wall of liquid fire the Germans believed they would annihilate entire brigades of French and English. While the 
sufferings of those caught in the stream have been terrible, the general military results are negligible 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



189 



and muttered, " They shall not pass." Day and 
night rolled on the endless procession. Of 
course the road wore away, but along its side sat 
thousands of soldiers endlessly cracking stone 
to repair its bed as soon as it showed signs of 
rutting. If a piece became particularly bad 
a detour was built and traffic diverted until 
the worn spot was thoroughly renewed. If one 
could imagine a city the size of Omaha, peo- 
pled only by men, and those men engaged in 
ceaseless destruction of everything brought 
into the town, producing nothing and saving 
nothing, one w T ould have an idea of the situa- 
tion of Verdun, and of the one narrow road 
along which every pound of material needed 
by the population had 
to be carried. I he 
strain of driving along 
that crowded highway 
was savage. Chauffeurs 
were on duty uninter- 
ruptedly for twenty- 
four to thirty hours at 
a stretch, making from 
125 to 175 miles with 
hardly a stop. 



"Can you imagine," asked 
one, "what it means to drive 
one of these lorries, weighing 
five tons, and carrying an 
equal weight of shells, either 
during a descent of 12 or 14 
in the 100 and with a lorry 
just in front and one just 
behind, or driving during a 
frosty night, or without 
lights for short intervals 
when neanng the front: Can 
you see the driver alone on 
his lorry, whose eyes are 
shutting, when a shock wakes 
him up suddenly, who is 
obliged to sing, to sit very 



perched twenty-four permanent forts, mak- 
ing a circle with a five-mile radius and the 
city for the centre. But it was not about 
these forts, with one or two exceptions, that 
the battle raged. By this period of the war 
it had been too thoroughly demonstrated 

cations were of but 
that a defense only 
from the citadel 
whatsoever. Ac- 
French defense 
of earthworks, with 
entanglements, 
or ten miles beyond 
forts and forming 



that fixed fortifi- 
ittle value and 
five or six miles 
was no defense 
cordingly the true 
was in three lines 
the usual wire 
thrown out eight 
the ring of fixed 




j Underwood & Underwood 
The principal needs of infantry in the trenches are as follows: rifle, grenade-throwing gun, 
upright, to swear at himself pistol, package of powder against gas, grenades in a basket, bag of sand, pick-axe, gun- 
so as not to sleep, or throw grenades, signal lantern, alarm bell for gun attacks, barbed wire, rocket, corrugated iron 
his lorry into a ravine, or get scoo P> hatchgrate, shovel, sissors, broom, periscope, gun carrier with periscope and a gabron 
it stuck in the mud, or knock 



the one in front to pieces? And then the hundreds 
and hundreds of cars coming in the contrary direction 
whose lights blind him!" 

Let us consider the fortress for the defense 
of which such mighty efforts were needed. 



a bow nearly seventy-five miles long from 
Bourelles, west of Verdun, to Combres far 
to the southeast. A multitude of little 
villages were included in this line, and back of 
it were the twenty-four forts so that the de- 
Verdun, built o^i a hill on the bank of the tailed story of the battle, which at the end of 
River Meuse, which at this point flows nearly two years was still in progress, is filled with 
north and south, was surrounded by a circle confusing names of localities, most of which 
of higher hills. On the crests of these are may well be omitted here. Indeed no de- 



190 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



tailed nor technical report of that 
titanic contest is possible. It was 
a war rather than a battle. In it 
were involved from first to last not 
less than 2,000,000 soldiers with 
such an equipment for war as the 
world had never before known. 
When the Battle of the Aisne was 
fought steadily for twenty-two days 
in 1914 the world wondered, and 
pointed to it as the longest sustained 
conflict of modern history — Muk- 
den, which determined the issue of 
the Russo-Japanese War, having 
lasted twenty days, and Gettvs- 
burg, which saved the Union, but 
three. 

The Battle of Verdun may justly be said 
to have lasted more than two years, for while 
the fighting was not at its fiercest during all 
that period, there was no moment during all 
those months that it was not in progress 
somewhere along the Verdun sector. 




Early in Febru- 
of Verdun were 
imminence of an 
Deserters brought 
ister preparations 



ary the defenders 
convinced of the 
attack in force, 
news of the sin- 
ot the enemy. Air- 




I his pile nl ruins u.is once the stately chateau of M. de Kergelary. It was within the 
German lines along the Somme anil was battered to pieces hy French artillery and afterwards 
captured. This is typical of thousands ot homes in the war zone 



American officers as observers on the western front. Note that they 
are wearing steel helmets 

craft reconnoissances showed great activity 
in the Hun lines. Bombardments began 
February 16th and the governor of the city 
cleared it of its civilian inhabitants. But the 
Germans did not give warning of their attack 
by the customary two days' artillery fire to 
cut wire and reduce parapets. Instead they 
opened the battle on the 21st with a savage 
but brief fire of all their guns from the 4-inch 
up to the Austrian 13-inch. Following this 
their troops advanced in solid waves. More 
than 250,000 bayonets were aligned and they 
expected to be in Verdun in four days. 

The first attack was directed against the 
sector dominated by Fort Douaumont. 
That work, though giving its name to the 
seven and a half miles 
of front of which it 
was the centre, had 
been dismantled and 
its guns mounted in the 
neighboring trenches. 
The attack began soon 
after sunrise of a bit- 
ter winter's morning 
with a furious fire from 
the closely packed Ger- 
man batteries. French 
aviators flying over the 
enemy's lines declared 
that it was impossible 
to note the position of 
the different batteries 
as the cannon stood 
almost wheel to wheel 
in one continuous line. 
The shells flying up in- 
to the air looked like a 
salvo of thousands of 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



191 




British Red Cross in the battle of Flanders bringing in a wounded 
Frenchman 

rockets in some great celebration. But 
their explosion set loose stifling eases or the 



and after them the solid masses of 
the unapproachable Germ an infant rv. 
In the face of this assault the defen- 
ders stood firm. In the crushed and 
shattered remnants of their trenches, 
in the craters made by the great 
shells, they crouched low, working 
their rifles and their machine guns. 
Death stalked through both lines. 
A French soldier in the trenches at 
Douaumont wrote for the Paris 
Figaro a description of the fighting 
that smells of the very explosives 
and the blood itself. It is violently 
French, of course, and full of defi- 
ance and contempt for the enemy, 
but as a battle picture it has life and 
undoubtedly truth: 

Despite the horror of it, despite the ceaseless flow 
fumes that brought temporary blindness f bi O0 d, one wants to see . One's soul wants to feed 
with scalding tears, or liquid fire that burned on tne sight of the btute Boches falling. I stopped 
and seared every object within reach and re- on the ground for hours, and when I closed my eyes 
fused to be extinguished by any ordinary I saw the whole picture again. The guns ate firing 
means. Only the more 
commonplace shells 
scattered shrapnel by 
the thousand or jagged 
pieces of metal to rend 
and slay their victims. 
Over the line of batteries 
floated a number of cap- 
tive balloons from which 
observers telephoned to 
gunners below directions 
for the rectification of 
their aim. No safe post 
this, for the French gun- 
ners and the French air- 
craft made the balloons 
their target with fre- 
quent fatal effects. 
"Our first lines were al- 
most levelled by this 
avalanche of steel," 
writes one of the French 
officers. "Trenches, 
parapets, shelters, no 
matter how well made, 
were utterly destroyed." 
This end attained, the 
infantry attack follow- I 
ed. First reconnoitering 
groups of about fifteen ] 
men each, then larger 
detachments armed 
with hand grenades, Germans 




\ really gruesome sight is this showing an entire regiment of French infantry which 
was surprised in the Forest of Mosnel near Porcno and completely annihilated by the 



192 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




A French regiment resting on its march to the first line in the Somme battle 



at 200 and 300 yards, and shrapnel is exploding with 
a crash, scything them down. Our men hold their 
ground; our machine guns keep to their work, and 
yet they advance. 

Near me, as I lie in the mud, there is a giant wrapped 
in one of our uniforms with a steel helmet on his head. 
He seems to be dead, he is so absolutely still. At a 
given moment the Bodies are quite close to us. De- 
spite the noise of the guns one can hear their oaths 
and their shouts as they strike. Then the giant next 
to me jumps up, and with a voice like a stentor shouts, 
"Hier da! Hier da!" Mechanically some of us get 
up. (My wound, which had been dressed, left me 
free and I had forgotten.) I was unarmed, and so I 
struck him with my steel helmet and he dropped, 
with his head broken. An officer who was passing 
sees the incident and takes off the man's coat. Below 
is a German uniform. Where had the spy come from 
and how had he got there? 

Early in the battle the French were driven 
from their first line of defense. Their own 
writers insist that this was the plan of strat- 
egy previously determined upon. 1 hey com- 
pare it to the retreat from Mons and the ulti- 
mate halt to win a victory upon the Marne. 
The theory sounds like an afterthought, 
and it is vastly more probable that the first 
four days at Verdun were in fact a series of 
well-earned victories for the Germans. At 
any rate, in that period they had driven the 
defenders from their first line, had taken the 
villages of Haumont, Brabant, and La 
Wavrille. Every foot of their advance was 
savagely contested, for the French were 



fighting to hold the foe back until their 
own reserves could come up. 

Douaumont, the immediate German ob- 
jective — village and fort both — had been 
pounded out of any semblance of form. It 
was no longer a fortress, but a mass of shat- 
tered masonry. It was no longer a little 
typical French village, with its streets of 
closely built stone houses, its church, public 
square, and cheerful cafes. It was a wilder- 
ness, a ghastly skeleton of a town peopled 
only by corpses. Yet such as it was the 
Germans coveted it — or rather were impelled 
with a fierce purpose to make that the point 
of piercing the French lines. Saturday and 
Sunday, the 25th and 26th, the struggle 
around this point became more violent and 
sanguinary. "The enemy no longer count 
their sacrifices," said one of the Prench re- 
ports of the day, chronicling a commonplace, 
for at no time during the war did the Ger- 
mans count the price in human life thev 
paid for a position they were determined to 
take. And as a result a party of Branden- 
burghers did cut their way into the ruins of 
the old fort and the word went out from the 
General StafF to all the world that "the 
armored fort of Douaumont, the cornerstone 
of the French defense of Verdun, has been 
carried by a Brandenburg regiment." But 
the triumph was for but a little while. 
Sweeping back into action the French cap- 
tured the village and enveloped the Bavar- 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



193 




A startling new situation confronted the Allies in their recent advance against the Germans. They are fortifying in a con- 
cealed way chains ot shell craters due to intensive artillery firing of months 



ians helplessly imprisoned in a useless fort. 
For the next week the tide of battle swept 
back and forth with now the Germans, then 
the French, in possession of the group of 
ruins called Douaumont. 

Early in April the vigor of the German at- 
tack lessened gradually until comparative 
peace ruled along the Verdun front. Modern 
battles seldom come to a sudden and satis- 
factory end, but rather taper off into inaction 
with occasional outbursts of new violence. 
So it was in this instance, and among some 
writers the 7th of April is taken as the date of 
the conclusion of the First Battle of Verdun, 
which had begun on the 21st of February. 
At any rate it is a convenient point at which 
to stop and take account of results for this 
portion of a battle which was in fact destined 
to last for more than a year longer. 

The German fortunes in the Battle of 
Verdun curiously parallel their experience 
in their drive for Pans. The record would 
reem to challenge that popular psychology 
which ascribes to the French character great 
initial dash and gallantry, while denying it 
the capacity for dogged and stubborn resist- 
ance. That theory has met its death in the 
present war and nowhere were its wounds 
more grievous than at Verdun. For there 
the Germans attacked with such dash and 
vigor that for four days they carried every- 



thing before them. The indifference of the 
men to death, and more still the callous dis- 
regard of human life of the Crown Prince, 
who sent his troops to hopeless and fruitless 
slaughter, amazed the French, who have left 
countless records of the way their assailants 
came on in solid lines, four or more deep, 
elbow to elbow and offering a target that no 
machine gunner could miss. The French 
generals had always been sparing of the lives 
of their men and none more so than General 
Petain, at this time in command at Verdun. 
But while husbanding his own men he was 
a glutton for slaughter of the enemy. He 
made the advantages of his defensive position 
tell. To him a hilltop or a hollow had no 
particular sanctity unless it were of distinct 
strategic value. The Huns could have it if 
they were willing to pay the price in life he 
exacted for surrendering it. So in examining 
the maps of this first continued action we 
find that the Germans had indeed gained 
considerable territory before Verdun. Their 
lines had advanced materially. But they 
had sacrificed probably 250,000 men in the 
six weeks' fighting, as against French losses 
of about 100,000. They were nearer the 
abandoned citadel of Verdun, but they did 
not have Fort Vaux, though they had a foot- 
hold in Fort Douaumont. They did not 
have Dead Man's Hill, Hill 304, or the Wood 



194 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




A night scene on the Flanders front shows a huge British gun ahout to hurl its message of death 



of the Crows — they had none of the points 
of chief strategic value. And indeed they 
were farther from Verdun, and the victory 
its capture implied, than ever, as subsequent 
history showed. 

Indeed the Battle of Verdun was definitely 
and finally won by the French in this first six 
weeks though the Germans saw fit to prolong 
it at tremendous sacrifice of human life. It 
had been taken from the realm of military 
strategy into that of politics. The little ruin- 
ed town had no value to either of the bat- 
tling foes, but so extravagant had been the 
boasts of the German military party at the 
moment its capture had been undertaken 
that its leaders absolutely dared not admit 
defeat. Accordingly early in May the attack 
was resumed. 

In this second battle the fighting was even 
more sanguinary than in the first. General 
Nivelle had now succeeded General Petain 
in command of the French, while the Crown 
Prince still directed the German attack. 
The battle shaped itself into three parts. 
First was the effort of the Germans to carry 
Hill 304 a nd L'Homme Mort (or Dead 
Man's Hill), the ghastly yet fitting name of 
the scene of some of the most sanguinary 
fighting. Second, the French counter attack 
on Douaumont, where as we have seen the 
Germans had established themselves in the 
first fighting. Third, a German assault from 
Douaumont against the French lines in which 
they ultimately won the Fort of Vaux and 
came within four miles of the town of Verdun 
itself. 

The first assault was delivered May 4th 



and was preceded by a heavy bombardment 
in which numbers of the French troops were 
buried or otherwise put out of action. One 
of the defenders of Hill 304 wrote: "The 
dugout in which I was was hewn out of solid 
rock, but it swayed like a boat on a stormy 
sea and you could not keep a candle alight 
in it. The Canard Wood that morning had 
had the appearance of a wood, though all 
tattered and broken; but by evening it had 
lost all semblance of anything but a patch of 
earth." 

Correspondents and soldiers alike have 
commented on the seeming loneliness of this 
gigantic battlefield on which hundreds ot 
thousands of men were locked in murderous 
strife. Except for the aircraft hovering 
overhead, and the jets of smoke from hidden 
guns nothing was to be seen that indicated 
human activity. A writer from the German 
front described the scene before Hill 304 as 
he witnessed it thus: 

The important village of Esnes, lying south of Hill 
304, is already suffering under the hail of German 
shells. There is something awe-inspiring, even stupefy- 
ing, about this battle, raging from Fort de Belleville 
to Hill 304, particularly when one remembers that 
this is only one of three sectors of the battle for Verdun. 

The unequivocal emptiness and loneliness of vast 
battlefields give you a creepy sensation as of phantom 
armies fighting. Their presence, as I gazed to-day, was 
betrayed only by frequent fitful flashes of flame like 
fireflies on a summer night. One could see miles of 
these fireflies, despite the bright sunlight, each marking 
the mouth of a gun. They made one realize more 
vividly than figures possibly could how thickly the 
iron girdle tightening about Verdun is studded with 
German batteries. Not a man, horse, wagon, or motor 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



195 



could be seen moving about that fire-swept zone 
bounded by the rival artilleries. 

The only human touch was a giant yellow Cyclop's 
eye, blinking at us — a German heliograph in action. 
Turning about, we saw its mate winking back, but the 
theme of its luminous dialogue was not for publication. 

Even more fascinating than the unique bird's-eye 
view of the Verdun panorama was the grandeur of the 
battle symphony, surpassing anything ever heard be- 
fore on any front. A deep, low, and unchanging basic 
leitmotif was played by the distant guns from as far 
away as the Argonne at the right and from Douaumont 
and the east and south fronts of Verdun to the left. 
Varying melodies, rising and falling in pitch, intensity 
and volume, were played by the nearby guns. 

A writer from the French lines was more 
fortunate in that he witnessed an actual 
attack. He writes of it: 

The searchlights throw patch after patch of trees 
into bright relief, like the swiftly changing scenes of a 
cinematograph. Through binoculars one has a fright- 
ful vision. Not a yard of ground fails to receive the 
shock of a projectile. The solid earth bubbles before 
my eyes. Trees split and spring into the air. It is a 
surface earthquake with nothing spared, nothing 
stable. The Germans have abandoned the outlying 
brushwood and are huddled in the inmost recesses of 
the woods, but the French artillery pursues them 
pitilessly. 

Nearly 300 yards from the rim of brushwood the de- 
fenders — Prussians and Bavarians — have constructed 
a kind of redoubt which they expect to be the rock on 
which all attacks will break. The searchlights reveal 
their fortress; it is a wall of eatth and tree ttunks and 
seems half buried in the ground. Now and again in the 
patches of brightness one sees tiny shadows running, 
falling, rolling over or flitting from trunk to trunk, 
like frightened night creatures surprised by sudden 



daylight. It is the soldiers of the Kaiser trying \ainly 
to escape from the rain of death. 

Dawn breaks, and the searchlight beams vanish as 
the first grayness of morning rolls away night's curtain 
from the battlefield. We shiver in our blockhouse; 
is it cold, or nervousness? The officers around me say 
the moment has come. It is an agony of expectation; 
the attack is about to break. 

A shrill ringing startles every one. The Captain 
springs to the telephone, listens for an instant, and then 
cries: "All goes well!" in a firm voice. He hangs up 
the receiver, murmuring, "They're off." 

Our guns still thundet, but they have lengthened 
their range, and the line of smoke blobs opposite leaps 
forward towatd the horizon. Suddenly the mitrai- 
leuses set up a rattle right in front of us. They are 
firing from our front line trenches in a concave around 
the eastern corner of Avocourt Wood. 

Some one grabs my arms and points northward. 
Down the slopes of Hill 304 a multitude of nimble 
figures are rushing westward. Their numbers in- 
crease; armed warriors spring from the ground, as in 
the old Greek legend. "Our men," says the officer 
beside me. It is the soldiers of France at the charge. 

For a while they are sheltered from the German fire 
by a swelling billow of ground. They mount its crest 
and pour headlong downward. Now the pace is slower; 
they advance singly or in scattered groups — crawling, 
leaping, running, each man taking advantage of every 
atom of cover. The leaders have reached the first 
trench that lies across the path; but see! they pass it 
without hesitating, as though it wete a tiny brook. 

I learned afterward that a hundred tree trunks had 
been arranged like bridges all along the trench. 

Now the whole mass is across, and we can see what 
cunning brain has planned the attack, for the charging 
men go straight forward like runners between strings, 
leaving open lanes along which their comrades can still 
fire upon the defenders. 




British Tommies cheer as they go forwarH to their positions on the Flanders tront 



196 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




French troops cautiously entering their trenches on the western front 



At last the edge of the woods is reached, and the 
rattle of the mitrailleuses ceases. It is hand to hand 
now in that chaos of storm-tossed earth and tortured 
trees. Rifles are useless there; it is work for bayonet 
or revolver, for butt and club, or even for fists and 
teeth. Corpses are everywhere; the men fall over them 
at each step — some to rise no more — until the bodies 
form veritable heaps among which the living fight and 
wrestle. 

After more than three weeks of persistent 
attack the Germans gained the crests of both 
Hill 304 and the Dead Man. The price paid 
was prodigious. An eye witness says that 
there were slopes on the two hills "where 
the ground was raised several metres by 




^0) Underwood & Underwood 
A monster British tank going into action somewhere on the western front 



mounds of German 
corpses." The net gain 
tor which this sacrifice 
had been made was an 
advance of the German 
lines perhaps half a mile 
nearer Verdun. 

But if the French had 
lost ground on the two 
hills they had retaken 
Fort Douaumont. The 
attack on this work was 
begun May 21st, under 
the command of General 
Mangin, a famous Afri- 
can fighter. The troops 
were heartened at the 
very outset by the spec- 
tacle of a notable victory 
in the air won by French 
aviators before their very eyes. A long line 
of German kite balloons was aloft vigilantly 
reporting the preparations for attack when 
a French airplane squadron bore down upon 
them. The men in the trenches, themselves 
on the verge of what all knew must be a 
murderous attack, cheered their comrades 
in the air wildly as they sailed by to give 
battle to the Boches. The assailants had a 
new anti-balloon bomb, then first to be tested, 
which on bursting threw out a number of 
lesser bombs each of which spat out bits of 
a flaming chemical. In a few minutes six 
of the "sausages" were in flames and with 
this cheering spectacle in the air above their 
heads Mangin's men went 
over the top on their mis- 
sion of death. 

Of the fighting on the 
Douaumont sector a 
French captain has left 
this graphic account: 

Verdun has become a battle 
of madmen in the midst of a 
volcano. Whole regiments 
melt in a few minutes, and 
others take their places only 
to perish in the same way. 
Between Saturday morning 
(May 20) and noon Tuesday 
(May 23) we estimate that 
the Germans used up 100,000 
men on the west Meuse front 
alone. That is the price they 
paid for the recapture of our 
recent gains and the seizure of 
our outlying positions. The 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



197 



valley separating Le Mort Homme from Hill 287 is 
choked with bodies. A full brigade was mowed down 
in a quarter hour's holocaust by our machine guns. 
Le Mort Homme itself passed from our possession, 
but the crescent Bourrus position to the south prevents 
the enemy from utilizing it. 



legs, were amputated without a groan, and even after- 
ward the nun seemed not to have felt the shock. I hev 
asked for a cigarette or inquired how the battle was 
going. 

Our losses in retaking the fort were less heavy than 
was expected, as the enemy was demoralized by the 




Anti-aircraft gun attacking a Zeppelin at night. The flash from the gun lights up the whole surroundings 



The scene there is appalling, but is dwarfed in com- 
parison with the fighting around Douaumont. West 
of the Meuse, at least, one dies in the open air, but at 
Douaumont is the horror of darkness, where the men 
fight in tunnels, screaming with the lust of butchery, 
deafened by shells and grenades, stifled by smoke. 

Even the wounded refuse to abandon the struggle. 
As though possessed by devils, they fight on until they 
fall senseless from loss of blood. A surgeon in a front- 
line post told me that, in a redoubt at the south part 
of the fort, of 200 French dead fully half had more 
than two wounds. Those he was able to treat seemed 
utterly insane. They kept shouting war cries and 
their eyes blazed, and, strangest of all, they appeared 
indifferent to pain. At one moment anesthetics ran 
out owing to the impossibility of bringing forward 
fresh supplies through the bombardment. Arms, even 



cannonade — by far the most furious I have ever seen 
from French guns — and also was taken by surprise. 
But the subsequent action took a terrible toll. Cover 
was all blown to pieces. Every German rush was pre- 
ceded by two or three hours of hell-storm, and then wave 
after wave of attack in numbers that seemed unceasing. 
Again and again the defenders' ranks were renewed. 
Never have attacks been pushed home so continu- 
ously. The fight for Cemetery Hill at Gettysburg was 
no child's play, nor for Hougoumont at Waterloo, but 
here men have been flung 5,000 at a time at brief 
intervals for the last forty-eight hours. Practically 
the whole sector has been covered by a cannonade, 
compared to which Gettysburg was a hailstorm and 
Waterloo mere fireworks. Some shell holes were thirty 
feet across, the explosion killing fifty men simultane- 
ously. 



198 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



199 



Before our lines the German dead lie heaped in long 
rows. I am told one observer calculated there were 
7,000 in a distance of 700 yards. Besides they cannot 
succor their wounded, whereas of ours one, at least, in 
three is removed safely to the rear. Despite the bom- 
bardment supplies keep coming. Even the chloroform 
I spoke of arrived after an hour's delay when two 
sets of bearers had been killed. 

The dogged tenacity needed to continue the resist- 
ance far surpasses the furious elan of the attack. We 
know, too, the Germans cannot long maintain their 
present sacrifices. Since Saturday the enemy has lost 



make the infliction ofloss upon the enemy his 
first object, the conservation of his own men 
the second, while the holding of positions, 
unless absolutely vital, was relegated to 
third place. The Fortress of Douaumont 
was no vital strategic point. 

No more thrilling tale of gallantry was 
presented during the entire war than that of 
the defense of Fort Vaux by Major Raynal 
and a handful of devoted followers. Early 
in the battle this fort had been smashed 




,-' ■ •■' ? N v tvS* 



Only desolation and ruins in the wake of the retreating Germans. Devastated villages, burned bridges, and streets made im- 
passable by the barricades of ruined homes mark the route of the northward retreat of the German forces 



two, if not three, for each one of us. Every bombard- 
ment withstood, every rush checked brings nearer the 
moment of inevitable exhaustion. Then will come our 
recompense for these days of horror. 

With their first dash the French made their 
way into the fort. It was an ancient struc- 
ture, covering a vast extent of ground, and 
even when within the fighting was hard and 
long to clear it of its German defenders. By 
night the French held two-thirds of it, and 
the enemy on the outside were preparing 
their counter attack, which was in the end 
successful. In all the fighting around Ver- 
dun it was the effort of General Nivelle to 



into shapeless ruin by the German guns 
which since March had hurled upon it a 
daily average of 8,000 shells. The same 
deluge of fire had isolated it from the French 
lines. Cut off from all communication with 
their friends, destitute to a great degiee of 
water, without a surgeon, clinging to the 
subterranean dungeons of the fort where the 
enemy attacked them by swinging grenades 
into the loopholes at the end of cords, this 
little band of men maintained a heroic de- 
fense for five days. Overwhelmed at last 
they were taken prisoners, Raynal's gallantry 
having so impressed his captors that they 



200 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




420s falling; a continuous cloud of smoke everywhere. 
Trees leap into air like wisps of straw; it is an unheard- 
of spectacle. It is enough to make you lose your head, 
yet we patiently wait for the outcome. 

Suddenly it is already night. A sentinel runs up to 
the outposts: "There they are! Shoot!" 

A whole section shoots. But are the outposts driven 
in? Nobody knows. I take my rifle to go and see. I 
do not catch a ball. I find the sentinels flat on their 
faces in their holes, and run to the rear gesticulating 
and crying out orders to cease firing. The men obey. 
I return to the front, and soon, a hundred yards away, 
I see a bush scintillate with a rapid line of fire. This 
time it is they. Ta-ca-ta-ca, bzzi-bzzi. I hold my fire 
until thev approach, but the welcome evidently does 
not please them, for they stumble back over the ridge, 
leaving some men behind. One wounded cries, 
" Frantchmen!" 

I am drunk, mad. Something moves in the bushes 
to the right; I bound forward with set bayonet. It 
is my brave Sergeant, who has been out to see whether 
the Boches have all run away. . . . These are truly 
the most interesting moments of war; no longer the 
waiting, the anguish of bombardment, but the thrill 
of a free march into a glorious unknown — oh, that 
intoxication! I sing the "Marseillaise," the boys jubi- 
late, all the successive attacks have failed. After this 



Nature provided a snug retreat tor this frt-nch soldier. A 
hole in the base of a hollow tree is his small but cozy home, 
warm, dry. Here lie is reading his mail 

permitted him to retain his sword. The 
French Republic made him a Commander of 
the Legion of Honor, and as he was in a 
German prison and unable to receive it, the 
decoration of the order was pinned to the 
bosom of his wife at a special review of troops 
before the Invalides where lies the body of 
Napoleon. 

Not for the garrison of Vaux alone but 
for those in the fighting around the fort, the 
carnage was appalling. A French lieutenant 
has set down these recollections of it: 

The next morning a formidable rumor — the Boches 
are coming up to assault tort de Vaux! J he news- 
papers have told the facts; our 75s firing for six hours, 
the German bodies piling up in heaps. Horrible! but 
we applauded. Everybody went out of the trenches to 
look. The Yser, said the veterans, was nothing beside 
this massacre. 

That time I saw Germans fleeing like madmen. . . . 
The next day, the same thing over again; they have the 
cynicism to mount a battery on the slope; the German 
chiefs must be hangmen to hull their troops to death 
that way in masses and in broad daylight. All after- 
noon, a maximum bombardment; a wood is razed, a 
hill ravaged with shell holes. It is maddening; con- 
tinuous salvos of "big chariots"; one sees the 380s and 




© Underwood & Underwood 
A mine gallery on the Verdun front, funnels ot this 
sort are dug until they are under tin- enemy positions, then 
packed with high explosives and blown up as is shown in 
top picture of page 2or 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



20 1 








A mine explosion on the bitter battle front in Flanders. 
The explosion has thrown a great quantity of earth into the 
air, giving the effect of an ivy grown ruin 

evening the offensive is going to slacken for several 
days." 

June 23, 1916, came the last great German 
effort against Verdun. Then the Crown 
Prince flung 100,000 men against a front of 
three miles. General Nivelle, who foresaw 
the attack, had exhorted his troops to repel 
it. "The hour is decisive," he said. "The 
Germans, hunted down on all sides, are 
launching wild and furious attacks on our 
front in the hope of reaching the gates of 
Verdun before they themselves are assailed 
by the united forces of the Allies. You will 
not let them pass, my comrades. The coun- 
try demands this further supreme effort. " 

The general was right. The French did 
not let them pass. They never have passed. 

Undoubtedly the salvation of Verdun was 
largely due to the perfection of the new 
"French 75s," a type of artillery hardly 
known at the beginning of the war when the 
big "Busy Berthas" of Krupp and the great 
Austrian howitzers held first place as engines 
of death. A correspondent of the London 
Tiincs visiting the field at Verdun gives this 



lively description of a battery of these guns 
in action: 

When I asked the General to be shown a battery of 
75s every face in the group of officers beamed. Winding 
through the woods was a tiny trail, and this we followed 
until we emerged into a little clearing. A look disclosed 
the hiding place of a battery. I was escorted by the 
young Captain in charge into the nest of one of these 
guns. Squatted complacently on its haunches, its alert 
little nose peered expectantly out of a curtain of brush. 
If there ever was a weapon which had a personality 
it is surely this gun. Other field guns seem to me to 
be cynical and sinister, but this gun, like the French 
themselves, has nothing malevolent or morose about 
it. It is serious, to be sure, but its whole atmosphere 
is one of cheerful readiness to serve. Its killing is a 
part of its impersonal duty, as indeed one feels to be 
the case with the clean, gentlemanly soldiers of France. 
I hey kill to save France, not because they have the 
lust of slaughter. 

With a speed of fire of thirty shells to the minute 
and with a well-trained crew serving it with clockwork 
regularity, it resembles a machine gun rather than a 
field piece in action. So exquisite is the adjustment of 
the recoil that a coin or even a glass of water can be 
placed on the wheel while in action without being 
jarred off. 

In one of the Russian battles one of their batteries 




A delicate instrument used lor detecting mine operation 
called the microphone is being used by this French officer ot the 
engineering corps. This will detect the faintest sounds 



202 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



fired 525 roundb to the gun in a single day, which seemed 
to me at that tine an extraordinary rate of fire. When 
I mentioned this to the Captain, he laughingly replied, 
"I have fired from this (four-gun) battery 3,100 rounds 
of shells in forty-five minutes." I listened to him in 
amazement. "How long do your guns last at that 
rate?" I asked him, for the theory before the war was 
that a field piece did not have a life exceeding 8,000 to 
10,000 rounds of fire. The officer placed his hand af- 
fectionately on the gun that we were inspecting. 
"This is a brand-new gun which I have just received," 
he said. "The one whose place it has taken had fired 
more than 30,000 shells and still was not entirely fin- 
ished." Then he added, "You are surprised at my speed 
of fire, but there have been 75s in this war that have 
fired 1,600 rounds in a single day." From the guns he 
took me to his magazine and showed me tier upon tier 
of brightly polished, high-explosive, and shrapnel shells 
lying ready for use. 

The French had one great incentive to the 
desperate defense of Verdun of which the 
non-military world had no knowledge. The 
war had now been in progress for eighteen 
months or more, and the greatest flaw in the 
strategy of the Allies had been the failure of 
systematic cooperation. The Allies' fronts 
were far separated, one from the other, with- 
out those close communications such as 
would make complete unity of action possible. 
The Teutons were surrounded — a situation 
which has its terrors to the non-military 
mind, but is not without its advantages. 
The belligerent thus situated has shorter 
lines of communication than its foes, and, 
unle;3 attacked simultaneously on all sides, 



can shift its troops from a front not menaced 
to one which the enemy is assaulting. This 
Germany had done systematically since the 
beginning of the war. Her legions were 
rushed from France to save East Prussia in 
1914. They were hurried from East Prus- 
sia after Hindenburg's victory down into 
Galicia to rescue Austro-Hungary from the 
Russian drive. They sped back to Flanders 
to check the French effort to flank Von 
Kluck's right wing and cut his communica- 
tions. Outnumbered as a whole by their 
enemies, the Teutons by virtue of their 
shorter lines were usually able to outnumber 
them at any particular point of attack. 

Late in the winter of 191 5 a conference of 
the Allied leaders undertook to provide for 
more perfect cooperation between their arm- 
ies. Great drives were planned for the spring 
by the French, Italian, and Russian armies 
each in its own field of operation, and all to be 
conducted simultaneously. This menacing 
programme Germany thought might be head- 
ed off by a brilliant success at Verdun. Even 
if complete success could not be won, a con- 
tinuance of the savage attacks there would 
tie up so great a part of the French army as 
to compel the abandonment of the drive 
they had planned for the more western battle 
area, or at least cut down the number of men 
whom the French could employ in that 
movement. If this were indeed the reason 
for the pertinacity of the German attack at 
Verdun those who accepted it were misled. 




Monster French nuns near the Verdun front. These 240 millimetre guns are mounted on specially constructed steel cars 
from which they are fired. Note the mottled way in which they are painted. This is called camouflage and renders them 
less visible to aerial sco'uts 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



203 



Even while the fighting at 
that pointwas at its fiercest 
the Anglo-French offensive 
was launched July 1, 
1916. It was at first 
directed against the Ger- 
man lines on both sides 
of the Somme opposite 
Peronne. At that moment 
the Russians had just 
taken Czernowitz and 
were resistlessly rolling on 
toward Lemberg. Farther 
south the Italians were 
pushing into the Trentino 
and their guns were thun- 
dering down upon Gonzia, 
destined soon to fall. Both 




assaults at Verdun until the historian 

is tempted to say, as General Bosquet 

said of the Charge of the Light 

Brigade, "It is magnificent, but it 

is not war. " 

This Allied drive of mid-summer 
1916 came to be called the Bat- 
tle of the Somme. After the 
fashion of battles in this war it 
extended over five months and 
was a pronounced vic- 
tory for the Allies, but not 
in any sense decisive 
or final. Sir Doug- 
las Haig command- 
ed the British 
forces, a line of 1 1 J'2 
miles extending 



Turning a crater made by a mine explosion into use 

of these dangers the Austrians had to meet 
alone. The Germans could spare no men 
from Verdun. On no single frontier could 
the Teuton armies gain any rest. From no 
line or sector could the Kaiser withdraw any 
troops to succor a spot more menaced, for 
every foot of the long Teutonic line needed 
all the force that could be exerted there to 
withstand the pressure of the enemy. At no 
time during the war did the outlook for the 
Central Powers seem so desperate. It had 
its result in the determination of Roumania 
to join the Allied cause, and the virtual sur- 
render of the Greek government to Allied in- 
fluence to which the people of that kingdom 
had already given their active sympathy. 
Nevertheless the Germans continued for 
months their bloody and seemingly suicidal 



as the home of a sausage or oh-ervation balloon 

from Baupaume over a pleasant and fertile 
rolling country. At the latter point began 
the French line which extended southward 
across the River Somme. General Foch com- 
manded the French while General Joffre was 
in chief command over both Allied armies. 

The preparations for a modern battle differ 
materially from those of the days when a 
division or so rose from its bivouac, gulped 
its morning coffee and went gaily into action 
with an enemy patiently awaiting the as- 
sault. Let General Haig himself tell of 
some of the preparations for this one: 

Many miles of new railways — both standard and 
narrow gauge — and trench tramways were laid. All 
available roads were improved, many others were 
made, and long causeways were built over marshy 
valleys. Many additional dug-outs had to be provided 



204 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Examples of the new art. camouflage. I his picture shows how in the Marne country exposed roads are protected against avi- 
ators. Across the road at intervals green bunting is hung, blending with the color of the grass, making the road indistinct 



as shelter for the troops, for use as dressing stations 
for the wounded, and as magazines for storing ammu- 
nition, food water, and engineering material. Scores 
of miles of deep communication trenches had to be 
dug, as well as trenches for telephone wires, assembly 
and assault trenches, and numerous gun emplacements 
and observation posts. Important mining 
operations were undertaken, and charges 
were laid at various points beneath the 
enemv's lines. Except in the river valleys, 
the existing supplies of water were hope- 
lessly insufficient to meet the requirements 
of the numbers of men and horses to be 
concentrated in this area as our prepara- 
tions for the offensive proceeded. To meet 
this difficulty many wells and borings were 
sunk, and over one hundred pumping 
plants were installed. More than one hun- 
dred and twenty miles of water mains 
were laid, and everything was got ready 
to ensure an adequate water supply as our 
troops advanced. 

John Buchan, the ahle English 
historian who visited the battle- 
field, says of the store of munitions 
prepared: 

Any one who was present at Ypres in 
April and May, 191 5, saw the German guns 
all day pounding our lines with only a 
feeble and intermittent reply. It was bet- 



ter at Loos in September, when we showed that we 
could achieve an intense bombardment. But at that 
date our equipment sufficed only for spasmodic efforts 
and not for that sustained and continuous fire which 
was needed to destroy the enemy's defenses. I hings 
were very different in June, 1916. Everywhere on the 




An ammunition depot painted like a chicken coop. I o the approaching 
aviator the chickens appear to be near the coop and naturally all suspicion 
regarding the building is allayed 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



20: 




An artillery duel un the Verdun section photographed by a trench aviator. Shells can be seen bursting in 
The trench lines can be traced by the irregular criss-cross markings running over the ground 



lon<; British front there were British guns — heavy guns 
of all calibres, Held guns innumerable, and in the 
trenches there were quantities of trench mortars. The 
great munition dumps, constantly depleted and con- 
stantly replenished from distant bases, showed that 
there was food and to spare for this mass of artillery, 
and in the factories and depots at home every minute 
sa^v the reserves growing. 




<■' Underwood & 
Fiench prisoners, taken at Verdun by the Germans, on their 
prison camp 



For a week the preliminary bombardment 
roared and thundered. A 25-mile front was 
lined with guns and every gun was barking 
without interval. It would have taken 
eleven months of activity on the part of the 
munition plants of England in the opening 
days of the war to keep those great guns 
going for a single day, but now they 
knew no famine. But suddenly one 
morning there came a lull, then a 
change to a barrage fire, and along a 
front of twenty-five miles, singing Tip- 
perary and the Marseillaise, cheering 
and cursing, the men of the English 
and French armies had gone over the 
top. 

In telling the story of a battle ex- 
tending over many months we can give 
but slight attention to actions which 
at other times would appear most no- 
table, but in this instance are but 
small parts of a grand total. At the 
beginning the British carried all before 
them. Pozieres, Contalmaison, and 
Longueval fell to their advancing 
hosts. The Germans were strong in 
their defense. In clumps of woodland, 
in ruined houses, and stone barns they 
hid machine guns and trench mortars. 



Unuerwood 
way to a 



2o6 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Destroying a town over niyht. This picture shows the town 
mans, whose intention was to blow it up for 

But this resistance was beaten down by the 
cannonade. Germans were buried alive, in 
their dugouts and cellars, by the explosion 
of the monster shells which made a moun- 
tain where there had been a cellar, or a 
crater where there had been a hill. At 
Montauban the Teutons had such a network 
of trenches, traverses, redoubts, and com- 
munications, all guarded by barbed wire, 
that no infantry could have assaulted it and 
lived. What the British shells did to it is 
vividly described bv 
Philip Gibbs: 

It was the most fright- 
ful convulsion of the 
earth that the eyes of 
man could sec. 1 he 
bombardment of the 
British guns tossed all 
these earthworks into 
vast rubbish heaps and 
made this ground a vast 
series of shell craters so 
deep and so broad that 
it is like a field of extinct 
volcanoes. The ground 
rose and fell in enor- 
mous waves of brown 
earth, so that standing 
above one crater I saw 
before me these solid 
billows with thirty feet 
of slope? stretching away 
like a sea frozen after a 
great storm. 



The British must have 
hurled hundreds if not 
thousands of shells from 
their heaviest howitzers 
and long range guns into 
this stretch of fields. 
Even many of the dug- 
outs going thirty feet 
below the earth and 
strongly timbered and 
cemented had been 
choked with the masses 
of earth so that many 
dead bodies must lie 
buried there. But some 
had been left in spite of 
the upheaval of the earth 
around them, and into 
some of these I crept 
down, impelled by the 
strong, grim spell of 
those little dark rooms 
below where German 
soldiers lived only a few 
davs ago. 

The little square rooms were fitted up with relics 
of German officers and men. Tables were strewn with 
papeis On wooden bedsteads lay blue-gray overcoats. 
Wine bottles, photograph albums, furry haversacks, 
boots, belts, and kits of every kind all had been tum- 
bled together by the British soldiers who had come here 
after the first rush to the German trenches and searched 
for men in hiding. In one of the dugouts I stumbled 
against something and fumbled for my matches. 
When I struck a light I saw in a corner of the room 
a German who lay curled up with his head on his 
arms as though asleep. 1 did not stay to look at his 



as it stood when held by the Ger 
military reasons 




Mfc I ltlw* , i, i'iIii.i j' fi n ■ 







mmm 

5-'. ' 













file village as it looked the next morning taken from the exact spot as the picture above; shows 

the complete destruction 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



207 



face, but went up quick- 
iv, and yet 1 went 
down into the others 
and lingered in one where 
no corps; lay. because oi 
the tragic spirit that 
dwelt there and put its 
spell on me. 

An incident was told 
me bv a kilted Sergeant 
as he lay wounded. 
From one of the dug- 
outs came a German 
officer. He had a wild 
light in his eyes, and 
carried a great axe. 

"I surrender," he said 
in good English, and in 
broad Scotch the Ser- 
geant told him if he had 
an idea of surrendering 
it would be a good and 
wise thing to drop his 
chopper first; but the 
German officer swung it 

high, and it came like a flash past the Sergeant's head. 
Like a flash also the bayonet did its work. 

While the men were cleaning up the dugouts in the 
first-line trenches other men pressed on and stormed 
into Longueval village. The great fires there which I 
had seen in the darkness died down, and there was onlv 
a glow and smoulder of them in the ruins; but the 
machine guns were still chattering. 

]n one broken building there were six of them firing 
through holes in the walls. It was a strong redoubt, 
sweeping the ground which had once been a road.vry 




-«*■ 



-T 



Women as drivers of ambulances 




A quarry in the Verdun section where the greatest battle raged. 

resources 



on the western front are seen here rushing otf to meet a train 
which is coming in 

and now was a shambles. Scottish soldiers rushed the 
place and flung bombs into it until there was no more 
swish of bullets, but only a rising of smoke clouds and 
black dust. 

Longueval was a heap of charred bricks above the 
ground, but there was still trouble below ground before 
it was finally taken. There are many cellars in which 
the Germans fought like wolves at bay, and down in 
the darkness of these places men fought savagely, seeing 
only the glint of each other's eyes and feeling for each 
other's throats, unless there were bombs still handy to 

make a quicker ending. 
It was primitive war- 
fare; cavemen fought 
like that in such dark- 
ness, though not with 
bombs, which belong to 
our age. 

The French, 
meantime, fighting 
farther to the east- 
ward, were meeting 
with similar success- 
es. Hardecourt, 
Curlu, Compierre, 
and Becquincourt 
fell to their arms. 
After three days of 
fighting they held 
as trophies ten bat- 
teries of heavy artil- 
lery, many machine 
guns, and nearly 
1 0,000 prisoners. 



c Underwood & Underwood 
It is now being worked for its 



208 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



The British by that time had 6,000 prisoners, 
and the captive host increased rapidly day by 
day. A correspondent who visited the French 
lines July 9th gives this description of its 
advanced position near Peronne: 

As far as the eye can see the view is utterly the same: 
utterly monotonous, nothing but desolate slopes that 
once were a thickly populated French countryside. 
The complete inhumanity of outlook strikes one tre- 
mendously. Here two great armies are at death grips, 
vet apart from the incessant tumult of cannonade and 
the never-ending rows of little smoke clouds — new ones 
forming before the preceding ones have time to melt — 
one might be thousands of miles from civilization. 
Our maps are of little assistance. Here should be 
Feuilleres, there Flaucourt, farther on Assevilliers, but 
one can distinguish nothing save heaps of blackened 
stones that appear through the glasses. Even the roads 
have been swept away by the bombardment. Nothing 
but ditchlike trench lines mark the presence of humans. 

Suddenly voices cried: "Look over there, you can 
see soldiers." About half a mile before us one sees 
groups of men like ants working busily on the hillside. 
Through the glasses one sees that they are sheltering 
themselves with extraordinary care. Some have 
strange oblong shields like the ancient Roman legion- 
aries. Others are grouped under a kind of casemate 



on wheels whose roof touches the ground in front 
rising in a curve behind to give room for the workers. 
Still others hide behind a ripple of ground or hillocks. 
All are working furiously with picks and shovels. I 
have been told that the British losses have been height- 
ened by an utter disregard of danger. Even when not 
engaged in attacks our Allies seem still not to realize 
the necessity of unremitting caution. But the French 
have learned the lesson that Verdun hammered home 
— that the best soldier is he who regards his life as be- 
longing to France, something precious, never to be 
risked save when sheer necessity demands it. That, 
combined with the magnificent artillery service, is the 
reason why the French losses in this battle have been 
less than half — I speak from intimate knowledge — 
those in any previous French offensive in proportion 
to the number of troops engaged. 

It must not be thought that the Germans 
failed in any degree to oppose the Anglo- 
French advance with equal gallantry. The 
assailants won not a foot of ground without 
paying the price. After the first successful 
rush of the British, continuing for five days, 
further advance on that section of the line 
was checked and the Germans took the 
counter offensive. They did not, however, 




h 



Thousands of colonials are seen passing along one of the famous roads of France to join the great offensive which General 

Nivelle launched and his successor, General Petain, is carrying on 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



209 




Great mortar in action on the ever-changing Western front 



regain any of the lost territory, nor were they 
able to check the French who advanced stead- 
ily though slowly in the direction of Peronne. 
But the stubborn German resistance had 
compelled a deadlock on all but tour and one- 
half out of the twenty and one-half miles of 
battlefront. By the 1st of August German 
writers were declaring that the Battle of the 
Somme, as this whole operation had come to 
be known, was a failure, and had degenerated 
into mere trench warfare. At the moment 
their contention was well founded, but 
the Allies returned to the charge in the fall. 
It was in this new assault in the neighborhood 
of Courcelette and Martinpuich that the 
British brought into action a new, terrifying, 
and most effective engine of war in the shape 
of the famous tanks. 

The Germans had long had a report that 
their enemy was about to spring upon them 
something new in the way of war's weapons 
but they were little prepared for the great 
ungainly, waddling monsters of steel that 
came rumbling down upon them that Sep- 
tember afternoon, straddling trenches and 
breaking down trees and barbed -"wire en- 
tanglements in their progress. The tanks 
were in fact high-powered automobiles on 
which were built superstructures of steel not 
unlike the turret of a battleship, with ports 
from which peered the muzzles of machine 
and rapid-fire guns. Their armor was suffi- 
ciently heavy to withstand anything save 
the direct impact of a heavy shell. Their 



power was such that they butted down stone 
houses, overthrew trees of considerable size 
and moved unchecked through barbed wire 
entanglements like elephants through a bam- 
boo thicket. Their length enabled them to 
span most trenches, but should their bows 
fail to reach the other side the grip and power 
of their caterpillar wheels carried them down 
and up again triumphantly. Though form- 
idable engines of death, the appearance of 
the tanks, resembling gigantic toads, seems 
to have been irresistibly comic, and on their 
initial charge soldiers marched along beside 
them cheering and laughing despite the 
storm of bullets in the air. To the Germans, 
on the other hand, they brought sudden panic, 
for their invention and construction had 
been one of the best kept secrets of the war. 
Veritable land battleships, they were a terror 
to the enemy. Service in them was not the 
easiest, though notably safer than taking 
part in the charge outside. A young Aus- 
tralian left a graphic description of it: 

Strange sensation. Worse than being in a submarine- 
At first unable to see anything, but imagined a lot. 
Bullets began to rain like hailstones on a galvanized 
roof at first, then like a series of hammer blows. Sud- 
denly we gave a terrible lurch. I thought we were 
booked through. Lookout said we were astride an 
enemy trench. "Give them hell!" was the order. 
We gave them it. Our guns raked and swept trenches 
right and left. Got a peep at frightened Huns. It 
was grimly - humorous. They tried to bolt, like scared 
rabbits, but were shot down in bunches before getting 



2IO 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




German troops are seen here in what are called " pill boxes," in other words shell holes. Fighting in " pill boxes " is done with 
considerably more peril than fighting from trenches. Men are frequently compelled to stay for days until they can retreat 
with safety under cover of night. Frequently the light of star shells discloses them to the enemy and they pay the penalty 



to their burrows. Machine guns brought forward. 
Started vicious rattle on our "hide." Not the least 
impression was made. Shells began to burst. We 
moved on and overtook some more frightened Huns. 
Cut their ranks to ribbons with our fire. They ran 
like men possessed. Officer tried to rally them. They 
awaited our coming for a while. As soon as our guns 
began to spit at them they were off once more. Ex- 
perience was not altogether pleasant at first. Tank 
sickness is as bad as seasickness until you get used to 
them. 

The Battle of the Somme, thus renewed in 
September, raged until the last of November, 
and was renewed again in the early days of 
1917. The advance of the Allies was steady 
and in the end the Germans were driven 
back to that line of defense, the last estab- 
lished in France, known as the Hindenburg 
line. It was during this retreat that the 
Germans were guilty of such systematic 
devastation of the country they abandoned 
that humanity cried out aghast. The Ro- 
mans who sacked Carthage and sowed salt 
upon its site were guilty of no worse. Not 
only were all houses systematically destroyed, 
all roads torn up and wells filled in, but all 
fruit and shade trees were cut down, or 
girdled when time was too short for the felling. 
The Germans excused their barbarism by 
declaring that they were determined to make 
the country difficult for a pursuing army, 
but the work was done rather as though it 
were the intent to make the country incapable 



of sustaining a civil population for a quarter 
of a century to come. 

Early in April of that year British activi- 
ties broke out anew in the neighborhood of 
Arras — a complete success with a gain of five 
miles on a front of fifteen and the capture 
of 22,000 prisoners and 200 guns. In June 
they struck again at Ypres — the third battle 
about that long-sufFenng but now almost 
obliterated little Flemish town. All the 
important positions, 7,000 prisoners and 
many guns fell to the victorious assailants. 
The French for their part, after regaining in 
the early months of the year all that they had 
lost at Verdun — not a great deal — began 
their offensive April 16th. At the outset 
this seemed ill-fated. The Germans, seem- 
ingly encouraged by the Russian debacle, 
and perhaps reenforced from that front, 
checked their enemies at Laon and Brimont. 
But the French held tenaciously to their 
plan of campaign. In May they stormed 
Craonne, and cut a salient of four miles from 
the Hindenburg line, taking 4,300 prisoners. 
That famous line has become a thing to 
jeer at — no longer an impregnable line of 
defense, but a cheese for the Allies to slice 
at will, the British holding eleven miles of it. 
All the operations of the Allies in France and 
Belgium prospered during the first half of 

! 9 r 7- . . 

Then followed the vigorous British cam- 
paign in Flanders, culminating in November 



212 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




© Underwood & Underwood 
British tank bringing up a captured German naval gun in the great Cambrai battle 



in the notable victory at Cambrai. This 
victory, the fruits of which were largely lost 
again to the Germans as the result of their 
counter attack, was won in the main by sur- 
prise. The established practice of presaging 
an attack by a bombardment of several days' 
duration to cut wire and level parapets was 
abandoned. Instead great numbers of tanks 
were secretly gathered on the front and at 
the time set they led the assault. There was 
no preparatory bombardment. The land 
battleships broke down the entanglements 
and went over the parapets, and the infantry 
followed, winning one of the most notable 
victories of the war. The battle raged for 
twenty days. Philip Gibbs, one of the most 
graphic of the war correspondents, relates 
some picturesque incidents of the gas attack. 

The drama was far beyond the most fantastic im- 
agination. This attack on the Hindenburg lines before 
Cambrai has never been approached on the western 
front, and the first act began when the tanks moved 
forward before dawn toward the long, wide belts of 
wire, which they had to destroy before the rest could 
follow. 

These squadrons of tanks were led into action by the 
general commanding their corps, who carried his flag 
on his own tank — a most gallant man, full of enthusiasm 
for his monsters and their brave crews, and determined 



that this day should be theirs. To ever}' officer and 
man of the tanks he sent this Order of the Day before 
the battle: 

"The Tank Corps expects that every tank this day 
will do its damndest." 

They did. As the pilot of one of them told me, they 
"played merry hell." J hey moved forward in small 
groups, several hundreds of them, rolled down the 
German wire, trampled down its lines, and then crossed 
the deep gulf of the Hindenburg main line, pitching 
their noses downward as they drew their long bodies 
over the parapets, rearing up again with their long for- 
ward reach of body, and heaving themselves on to the 
ground beyond. 

The German troops knew nothing of the fate that 
awaited them until out of the gloom of dawn they saw 
these great numbers of gray inhuman creatures bearing 
down upon them. A German officer whom I saw to- 
day, one out of thousands of prisoners who have been 
taken, described his own sensations. At first he could 
not believe his eyes. He seemed in some horrible night- 
mare and thought he had gone mad. After that from 
his dugout he watched all the tanks trampling about, 
crunching down the wire, heaving themselves across his 
trenches and searching about for machine-gun emplace- 
ments, while his men ran about in terror, trying to 
avoid the bursts of fire and crying out in surrender. 

Some of the German troops kept their nerve and 
served their machine guns, firing between the tanks at 
British infantry, but the tanks dealt with them and 
silenced them. Some of the German snipers fired at 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



213 



the British at a few yards and the infantry dealt with 
them masterfully. But, for the most part, the enemy 
broke as soon as the tanks were on them and fled or 
surrendered. 

A few of the tanks had bad luck, and I saw these 
cripples this morning where they were overturned by 
shellfire or had become bogged. Elsewhere I saw one or 
two which had buried their noses deep into the soft 
earth and lay overturned or lay head downward over 
deep banks down which they had tried to crawl. But 
the tank casualties were light. 

The year 1917 may be said to have closed 
without any record of prodigious or decisive 
success won by the Allies on the western 
front and yet with decided general advance- 
ment of their fortunes. They had during 
the year kept their enemy on the defensive, 
and at this writing, February, 1918, are still 
so doing and even forcing them into retreat. 
They had recovered more than 1,000 square 
miles of French territory. They had taken 
such strategic points as the Chemin des 
Dames, Vimy Ridge and Paschendaele Ridge 
and had fought their way into positions that 
now menace the German occupation of the 
important iron and coal region around Lens. 
It is doubtless true that the end of the year 
came with a certain sense of disappointment 
to the Allies — particularly to the French. 

There had been high and justifiable hopes 
that the year would show material progress 
in the task of driving the Germans from 
France and ending the war. Instead the 



defection of Russia had freed German troops 
from that front to reenforce their lines in 
France, and to take the lead in driving the 
Italians from Austria. Instead of being able 
to move in irresistible force upon the enemy 
in the West the French and British had to 
send substantial aid to their Italian allies, 
now desperately fighting to save Venice from 
the Hun. 

In the latter part of the year it became ap- 
parent that the Germans were planning for a 
tremendous drive in France, and French and 
British set stubbornly to work to meet what 
was expected to be a culminating effort of 
the foe. They were encouraged to a degree 
by the arrival of American troops in France, 
but the ferriage across three thousand miles 
of ocean was necessarily slow and, while the 
authorities concealed the numbers carried, 
it is unlikely that the incoming of 1918 saw 
more than a quarter of a million of our boys 
on European territory. None the less they 
came steadily and continuously, and the con- 
tinued arrival of the new troops cheered 
the French mightily, particularly as for some 
reason the German drive was steadily put 
off. The longer it was deferred the greater 
would be the American reinforcements, and 
the poilus cheered mightily the "Sammies" 
as shipload after shipload found their way 
to the base on the coast and marched gaily to 
their training camps within sound of the 
guns. 




Underwood & Underwood 



British troops going to relieve their comrades in the front line trench. A British tank is seen at the extreme left 




< 

u 



CHAPTER VIII 



ITALY IN THE WAR— WHY THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE WAS BROKEN DANNUNZIo's 

APPEAL FOR WAR EARLY ITALIAN SUCCESSES — STURDY RESISTANCE OF GORI- 

ZIA — THE AUSTRIAN COUNTER ATTACK ITALY RALLIES — GORIZIA FALLS — 

TRIESTE MENACED — TREACHERY IN ITALIAN RANKS — THE GREAT DISASTER 



I 









k*&&£ 



TALY entered the war by 
a declaration against 
Austria — not Germany — 
on the 23d of May, 1915. 
Nothing in the 
campaigns her 
armies fought 
was more dra- 
matic than the 
fight made in 
her parliament 
and her public 
places to drag 
her into the 




struggle. Superficially it appeared that she was 
morally bound to cooperate with the Teutons. 
For Italy had long been a member of the 
Triple Alliance, which bound her to Germany 
and Austria. But that Alliance was essen- 
tially defensive. It provided that all should 
rally to the defense of any one member that 
might be attacked from without. It was 
the claim of those Italians who sought to 
force the war upon a hesitant Parliament 
and an unwilling king, that Austria's ulti- 
matum to Serbia was in effect an aggression, 
an incitement to war which no one member 
of the Alliance had a right to offer without 
consultation with the others. The plea of 
the war party in Italy was that Austria was 
not attacked but was the assailant, and that 
as a party to a purely defensive agreement 
Italy was not morally obligated to come to 
her aid. 

A second cause of complaint was that 
Article VIII of the Triple Alliance bound 
Austria to refrain from any occupation of 
Balkan territory without agreement with 
Italy and the payment to her of compen- 
sation. Austria, however, invaded Serbia 
without agreement with or even notice to 
Italy, and though demand for compensation 
was instantly made by the latter nation, the 
nature and intent of the payment were de- 



bated so long by the Austrians that the 
Italians concluded it would never be paid, 
tinally the Italian advocates of war con- 
tended that Austrian preparations for war 
upon Russia were in fact a provocation to 
the latter nation to declare war, and that 
Italy could not be bound by her agreement 
to aid Austria against a Russian attack 
which she had invited. 

These were the technical arguments em- 
ployed to force Italy into battle. They were 
the pleas which Italian statesmen put for- 
ward in defense of their action against the 
criticism of the world. They were bitterly 
denounced by the Teutonic Allies as being 
made in bad faith, and indeed they were 
rather the excuses for, than the true incen- 
tives to, the action finally taken by the 
Italian nation. For Italy, like France, had 
her lost provinces. Her Alsace-Lorraine are 
Trent and Trieste, the one lying in the Dolo- 
mite Alps a scant forty miles north of the 
Austro-Italian boundary, the latter a noble 
port at the head of the Adriatic, which has 
had much to do with the decadence of the 
maritime glories of Venice, which it faces 
across that sun-lit sea. For the recovery 
of these lost provinces the Italian heart has 
yearned for half a century, and the instant 
action of the army when war was declared 
was to plunge into the craggy ranges of the 
Dolomites in the effort to reclaim "Italia 
Irredenta," as that region is called in Italy. 
Moreover, modern Italy has a legacy of hate 
against the Austrians which no formal Alli- 
ance could ever obliterate. Until 1868 the 
military thrall of Austria was upon the 
northern provinces of Italy, and Milan and 
Venice for years lived in sullen resentment 
as cities held by the enemy. The Italian is 
an emotional being, and though the Parlia- 
ment under the control of Giolitti, a strongly 
pro-German statesman, held out for ten long 
months against war on the Allies' side, an 



21S 



2l6 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Italian troops transporting Austrian prisoners in the high mountains 



army of orators and pamphleteers stirred up 
the people to the highest pitch of excite- 
ment, and the demonstrations in favor of 
such action amounted almost to revolution. 
Gabriele d'Annunzio, poet and playwright, 
was a leader in this agitation, traveling from 
town to town, haranguing the people from 




Italian soldiers on guard at the boundary post on the Austro- 
Italian line ot the Tyrolian Alps 



the steps of the Roman capitol, and in the 
grand plaza of St. Peter's, turning out pam- 
phlets as plenteous as the doves of St. Mark's, 
appealing to all that was emotional in the 
Italian nature until he had aroused the popu- 
lace from Messina to Venice to a point that 
hardly brooked control. After a dissolution 
of the ministry there followed a campaign 
which racked the Italian peninsula from end 
to end. Every possible dramatic incident 
was seized upon as a rallying point for the 
war party. In January the body of Bruno 
Garibaldi, the grandson of Italy's famous 
liberator, was brought back from France 
where he had been slain, fighting bravely 
with the Allies. All Italy went wild with 
adoration for the hero, and applause for the 
cause in which he had fallen. His state 
funeral in Rome was a cortege which would 
have done honor to a king, and the whole 
city lined the narrow and historic ways 
through which it passed. It was the cause, 
equally with the heroic and historic name, to 
which this tribute of a whole nation was paid. 
From that day there was no doubt as to the 
side on which Italy would land. 

It has been asserted that in her final action 
Italy was animated by a lust for spoils, by 
the desire to regain Trent and Trieste, by 
covetousness for Albania, and an intent to 
make the Adriatic an Italian lake, by an 
ambition to have a larger slice of the Balkan 
pie, and a bit of the final slicing of Turkey. 
Probably that is true. Nations are not un- 
selfish, and statesmen are in duty bound to 
aid in the aggrandizement of their states. 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



217 




Italian intantry attacking in the region ot Jamiano 



But Italy was not wholly animated by mer- 
cenary motives, for she took up the cause 
of the Allies when, in her neighborhood at 
least, it was darkest. The Russians were in 
full retreat from Galicia when she flung down 
her gauntlet to Austria. It was the people 
of Italy, the emotions of Italy, rather than 
any sordid considerations that rushed her 
into battle. Never did secret diplomacy or 
the machinations of a cabinet have less to do 
with calling a nation to arms. 

Italy now came to the aid of the Allies 
with an organized army of approximately 
700,000 in the first line, 320,000 in the Mo- 
bile Militia, and a reserve of something like 
2,000,000 in the Territorial Militia. For 
immediate service she could call at least one 
million men. She had a supply of Krupp 
howitzers and siege guns, and her field bat- 
teries were of the famous French 75's. King 
Victor Emmanuel was Commander in Chief, 
and while not hasty in lending his support 
to the declaration of war, won national ap- 
plause and approbation by the gallantry 
with which he led his troops when once they 
had entered upon the struggle. The Chief 
of the General Staff, and Generalissimo 
in the field was Count Luigi Cadorna, a 
soldier by inheritance and service of a life- 
time. He was at the time of Italy's en- 
trance upon the war sixty-five years of 
age, but manifested all the vigor and 
dash of a far younger man. He had stud- 
ied the contour of Italy's rugged Alpine 
frontier until he knew it as General 
Hindenburg knew the Masurian Lakes — 



and at the proper time he put his knowledge 
to equally effective use. 

The Italian navy, a summary of the 
strength of which has been presented else- 
where, immediately upon the declaration of 
war, took over from the French the task of 




Italian troops watching th 

mountain trenches 



• International Film Service 
Austrian position from their 



2l8 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




< Underwood & Underwood 
Italian ski corps reconnoitering an Austrian position high in the Alps ot Trentino 



defending the Adriatic and during the war 
maintained its supremacy in that sea. Its 
commander was the Duke of the Abruzzi, 
famous the world over as mountaineer, scien- 
tist and explorer. He was well known in the 
United States, having led notable exploring 
expeditions in our Alaskan territory. 

The rugged line of Alps which form Italy's 
northern border constitute a protection for 
Austria, a menace to the more southerly nation. 
For the boundary line gives the crests to Aus- 
tria. Her troops bent on an invasion would 
fight downward to the gentle declivities of 
the Italian foothills. If the 
Italians on their part sought to 
invade Austria, their columns 
would have to make their way 
through narrow passes and 
tortuous defiles and up pre- 
cipitous heights to the summit. 
With all physical conditions 
against her, however, the 
Italians had the advantage of 
conducting their invasion in a 
land the greater part of whose 
inhabitants were enthusiastic- 
ally friendly. For the territory 
about Trent and Trieste is 
largely peopled by Italians, 
whose restive state under the 
Austrian domination has given 
the territory the name Italia 
Irredenta or Italy Unredeemed. 
Italy struck first, along a 
five-hundred-mile front. Her 



armies quickly spread over the 
Trentino and, on the west, 
crossed the Isonzo River, and 
reached Monfalcone within 
four days of the declaration of 
war. It seemed for the time as 
though there were to be no effec- 
tive resistance by the Austrians, 
who had indeed been forced by 
the Russian menace to send to 
their eastern front an army of 
700,000 men who had seen 
service — men of from thirty- 
five to forty years who had re- 
cently had special training from 
German officers. With these 
troops withdrawn the opposi- 
tion to the Italian advance was 
necessarily entrusted to troops 
made up of bovs below nineteen 
and men above forty-five 
hastily drawn from the threatened territory 
which was thoroughly permeated with pro- 
Italian sentiment. As a result the Italian 
advance for the first two months encountered 
practically no effective resistance. 

The Italian strategy put briefly was: 

1. To neutralize the friendly Trentino by 
capturing or "covering" her defenses, and 
cutting her line of communication with 
Austria proper. 

2. To cover, or capture, Trieste and then 
move in force in the direction of the Austrian 
fortress of Klagenfurt and Vienna. The 




© Underwood & Underwood 
Italian infantry resting up in an Austrian town on the bank of the Isonzo. This 
town was taken only after a terrific artillery bombardment 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



219 



distance of the Austrian capital 
from the base of Italian opera- 
tions a week after the war 
began was little more than 
that from New York to Provi- 
dence. 

It seemed at first that all 
this was to be yielded to Italy 
by default. By the end of 
July her commanders were 
satisfied with conditions in 
the Trentino, and her troops 
were attacking along the Ison- 
zo from Tarvis to the Adriatic 
— a front of not less than 
seventy-five miles. The river 
itself was a great natural 
defense for the Austnans. 
Flowing through narrow 
gorges, bordered by steep cliffs 
broken only by narrow moun- 
tain passes, it had been 
strengthened by powerful fortresses erected 
by the Austrians in farsighted anticipation 
of trouble with their Italian neighbors. All 
bridges had been destroyed and the season 
was one of flood waters. Yet to the amaze- 
ment of military observers the Italians ac- 
complished the crossing of the river in four 
separate places. Agile as the mountain 
chamois, vested with all the reckless daring 
of the Latin peoples, they proved to be 
precisely the troops needed for so desperate 
an enterprise. 

Gorizia, a fortified camp, garrisoned by 




Famous Italian infantry brigade, called "Florence, 

the enemy attacks 



c I'nderwood & Underwood 
resting after having repulsed 




Wounded Italian troops awaiting ambulances to take them 



200,000 troops, and with its outlying works 
offering a front of sixty miles, was the im- 
mediate objective and early in August, 191 5, 
the Italian staff announced positively that 
its capture was a matter of but a few days. 
Never were military commanders more de- 
ceived. Gorizia fell indeed to the Italian 
arms, but it fell in August, 1916, just a 
year later. The twelve months between 
witnessed some of the hardest and most in- 
conclusive fighting that had taken place in 
any battle area of the Great War. 

Into all the details of that year of struggle 
and of carnage it is impossible 
in this brief narrative to go. 
Enough to say that by the 
middle of December, 191 5, 
Italy had so established herself 
within Austrian borders as to 
make any Austrian invasion of 
her own territory appear im- 
probable. The Austrian line 
on the Isonzo she had pierced 
at the centre. Tolmino, 
Gorizia, and Trieste were all 
menaced by her troops, and 
the occupation of any one of 
them meant a long step on the 
way to Vienna. Gorizia, had 
suffered heavily from the hie 
of General Cadorno's artillery, 
but though the town and its 
forts were in ruins the defend- 
ers still m-ai-ntained what all 






th 



& Lrulerwood 
base hospital 



2 20 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




© Underwood & Underwood 
Italian reinforcements on Mount Magnoboschi, near the Isonzo front, awaiting the signal to begin an attack against the Austrians 



conceded to be a hopeless resistance. But 
those who conceded this had little con- 
ception of how long the dogged Austrians 
could hold out. 

The falling of winter in the narrow and 
precipitous defiles and towering peaks of 
the Dolomites ended effective operations in 
that section. Some fighting, indeed, pro- 
gressed, and the world heard of skirmishes 
on skiis over snow lying seven feet deep on 
the level, of artillery mounted on sledges, 
and of hot battles fought among the ava- 
lanches. But in the main the winter passed 
without any material change in the positions 
along the Italian frontier. The Austrians 
were on the defensive, and every natural 
obstacle that the rigors of winter put in 
the path of the Italians was to their advan- 
tage. Nevertheless the world wondered at 
the slight showing made by the Italians and 
complaint was common in the Allied press that 
the soldiers of Victor Emmanuel were "shirk- 
ing their bit." What had really happened 
was that while they had crossed the frontiers 
at practically every point, they had been in- 
stantly checked upon coming into contact 
with the Austrian main lines of defense. 
Once so checked the Italian lines showed as 



little change for eight months as did the 
Erench lines in Flanders. 

In May, 1916, the Austrians, who had thus 
far been content with maintaining a fairly 
successful defensive, suddenly began an at- 
tack, which in its turn threatened to over- 
whelm the Italian forces along the western 
Alpine front. It is estimated that this 
Austrian drive enlisted more than 700,000 
men, of whom 360,000 were newly brought 
from the Galician front. Both in the Tren- 
tino and along the Isonzo front the Austro- 
Hungarians pressed the attack with such 
vigor that the Italians were pressed back 
from all the advanced positions they had 
won in the Austrian Tyrol, and were hard put 
to it to maintain their lines before Gorizia. 
For the first time in the Italian theatre of 
war the work of the artillery took on the pro- 
portions that it had maintained in the battle- 
fields of France. More than 2,000 heavy 
guns were brought into action by the Aus- 
trians, and the weight of metal thrown is said 
to have been equalled only at Verdun. 

The Austrian drive continued for ten days. 
It had been planned with the utmost skill. 
Many strategic points in the Trentino were 
recovered, and the Austrian columns pene- 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



221 



trated far into Italian territory. At this 
time the Austrian War Office reported the 
recovery of 300 square miles of lost Austrian 
territory, and the occupation of 300 square 
miles of Italian soil. The moment seemed 
critical for Italy, for the Austrian Tyrol pene- 
trates so far into her territory that invading 
columns moving southeast from that border 
would not only capture Venice and Verona, 
but would cut off the Italian army operating 
along the Isonzo. Or, if the Austrians chose 
to cooperate with the German drive, then in 
progress in France, they might move west- 
ward from the Trentino salient and menace 
Milan and Turin, the latter a point of con- 
centration for an attack on France's Italian 
frontier. Should such an attack be even 
threatened France would have to rush troops 
to the menaced front, thereby weakening her 
defense at Verdun and in Flanders. The 
situation was a critical one. It found its 
reflection in Italian politics, for furious at- 
tacks upon the conduct of the war caused the 
overthrow of the ministry. But in the end 
Italian gallantry saved the day and wrested 
new victories from the very grip of defeat. 
It is quite true that the full measure of the 
new Italian successes was due to the launch- 



ing in June, 1916, of the great Russian drive 
in Bukowina and Galicia which compelled 
the diversion of many of the Austrian troops 
to that theatre of war. But even before this 
the Italians, though in ten days they had 
lost 30,000 prisoners and 298 cannon, with 
more than 60,000 men put out of action, had 
rallied and checked the invaders' advances. 
In May and June of 1916 the conditions of 
the same months in 191 5 had been precisely 
reversed. At the earlier period the Italians 
had carried all the Austrian outposts but 
were checked in their career when they en- 
countered the enemy's main line of defense. 
So, too, the Austrians were checked now 
that they had encountered the main line of 
the Italians. Then came the Russian di- 
version, and sharply upon its heels the 
Italians in their turn began a dashing and 
successful counter offensive. 

Climatic conditions compelled the Italians 
to force the fighting on the Isonzo line at 
first rather than in the Tyrol. In the tower- 
ing ranges of the Dolomites the snow lies 
heavy until July, and after driving their foe 
from their own territory the Italian forces 
in that section rested on their arms to some 
extent, awaiting summer and the disap- 




< Underwood ^ Underwood 
Monster 149-inch Italian gun in action 10 miles from the Austrian fortifications of Gorizia on the Carso ulateau 



222 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




4 " ' ~ fc> ^i. 



f&r 




Italians climbing a mountainside to surprise the Austrians 



pearance of the snow. But the 
drive on Gorizia was not delayed. 
The broad valley of the Isonzo is 
so placed that the warm winds of 
Italy and the Adriatic flow freely 
up it at all times, giving Gorizia, 
despite its northern latitude, 
some fame as a winter resort. It 
is indeed almost Californian in 
climate. The town itself lies in 
the centre of a ring of hills, all 
held by Austrian batteries. 
Although those immediately in 
front of the Italian armies were 
reduced by artillery or taken by 
trench warfare, it was futile for 
the assailants to occupy the town 
itself while it was still commanded 
by others on adjacent hills, and 
upon these the Italians now 
began a patient and persistent 
attack. Three hills commanded 
the city — M ount Sabatino, 
Mount San Michele, and the 
heights of Podgora. The last 
were taken by the Italians in No- 
vember. The other two suc- 
cumbed to Victor Emmanuel's 
artillery and trench warfare the 
last week in July. The Italians 
had brought to this w r ork a 
prodigious equipment of new and 
powerful guns — 1,500 were said 
to have been furnished the army 
at the beginning of its new drive 
in May. For two days the 
mountainside, which had been 
under heavy fire for a month or 
more, was subjected to such an 
infernal rain of shell and shrapnel 
that no living thing could with- 
stand it. 

Mount Sabatino had long 
seemed impregnable. It resisted 
stubbornly the fire of the terrible 
guns, and was taken only by the 
exercise of that incredible and 
patient industry which charac- 
terized so many of the military 
operations of the war. The 
formation of the land in this 
region is of limestone, and in this 
the Italians had for months been 
hewing wide underground pass- 
ageways, capable of permitting 
four men abreast to pass from 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



223 



their lines to within twenty yards of the Immediately upon securing the heights the 

Austrian defenses. Three such tunnels Italians turned their attention to the city, 

of 240 to 300 feet long were ready for use It was heavily shelled to drive out the few 

when, on August 6th, the final bombardment defenders remaining. The bridgehead was 

began. Then, after the great guns had still held by the Austrians, and the Italians 

beaten the Austrian trenches out of any entered upon a hand-to-hand battle in the 

semblance of form, and driven away nearly strip of territory that still separated them 

all the defenders who could escape, the from it. Here there was subterranean war- 




Italian reinforcements on the road to defensive positions along the Piave River in the recent Austro-German drive at Italy 



Italians poured out of the exits of their tun- 
nels and overwhelmed the amazed Austrians 
who remained. Mount Sabatino thus passed 
into Italian hands. Mount San Michele fell 
the same day. Twenty times or more it 
had been taken and lost, and for seven 
months more than half of its summit had 
been held by the Italians. Always domi- 
nated by the Austrian fire from the higher 
Mount Sabatino it could not be held until the 
latter peak had fallen. But now after sus- 
taining attack not only from the Italian 
guns, but from twenty-four dirigible bal- 
loons, each carrying four tons of explosive 
and daringly operated, its defenders finally 
withdrew. 



fare. The Austro-Hungarians had adapted 
for purposes of defense hundreds of caves 
that nature had formed in the limestone hills 
and crags. These they had enlarged into 
great halls, holding vast quantities of muni- 
tions and housing thousands of men. Burn- 
ing straw and gasoline were used at times to 
dislodge the defenders. For three days this 
sort of fighting raged, then the remnant of the 
Austrians fled across the bridge, blowing it 
up as the last company passed. There- 
upon the Italians, in the face of a heavy fire, 
forded the stream and put the seal of comple- 
tion upon their victory. 

August 9th, the Duke of Aosta and King 
Victor Emmanuel rode into the conquered 



224 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




© Underwood & Underwood 
Italian troops coming from the Isonzo region on their way to new positions in the Carso Mountains in their latest advance 



city. The culmination of a fourteen months' 
campaign had been reached. Gorizia had 
fallen. One great step had been taken on 
the way to Vienna. The Italian guns were 
within twelve miles of Trieste and the Aus- 
trian fleet had already been ordered to 
evacuate that port which had been its base 
and seek a new one farther down the Adriatic. 
A notable advance had been made in the 
Allied plan of campaign — namely, to pound 
Austria as the weakest of the Teutonic 
Allies and to reduce her to subjection even 




© Underwood & Underwood 
Italian engineers repairing telegraph and telephone lines on the march 



while Germany fought gallantly on. It 
looked easy at that moment but time — and 
treachery — brought a sudden and terrible 
reverse to the elated Italians. 

During the long period of fighting which 
preceded the fall of Gorizia the men of both 
armies did some wonderful fighting in both 
the Dolomites and the Julian Alps. On 
those craggv steeps a glare of snow and ice 
in winter and sharp inclines of polished gran- 
ite in summer — men had need of the adhesive 
qualities of flies to climb at all — to say 
nothing of climbing under fire 
and weighted down with the 
equipment of soldiers. An 
Italian officer was showing 
such a precipice to Philip 
Gibbs. It had been scaled a 
few days before by the Alpini. 



You can't see our trenches there, 
he said, because we hold the summit, 
and the trenches are on the other 
side. You see that sheer wall of rock 
facing us? Well, it was by going up 
that that our soldiers took Mount 
Nero. We had to have it. It is an 
important observatory — better than 
this one — for the Isonzo Valley. 
From there one can see almost to the 
Dolomites on the one side and almost 
to Laibach on the other. 

You see that long ridge connecting 
the peak with the mountains beyond? 
That is where we made a strong feint 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



225 



attack. We sent two columns along 
that ridge so that the Austrians 
thought that was all we intended to 
do. But the third and principal 
column went up the precipice. They 
did it during one dark night. It was 
important that they should do it 
without a sound, as they were to take 
the summit from the rear by sur- 
prise. So they climbed up without 
rifles, which might have knocked 
against things and sent stones crash- 
ing down, and they went up in bare 
feet to avoid slipping and also to 
avoid sound. They carried onlv 
revolvers and hand grenades. 

They jumped on the Austrians 
just at dawn. But the Austrians, 
though surprised, were very strong. 
We quickly used up our revolvers 
and bombs and we took Mount Nero 
with our hands. I mean that the 
fight became so desperate that our 
Alpini literally conquered by fighting hand to hand, so 
that hundreds of Austrians were hurled bodily down 
that cliff to the valley over a mile below. 

I meditated upon what I had been hearing. As I 
looked at that appalling cliff" it seemed as though I had 
been reading some ghastly fiction. 

The Isonzo River in its passage through 
the gorges of the Julian Alps is a roaring 
torrent, icy cold and ghastly green, for it 




© Underwood & Underwood 
Italian soldier about to hurl a death-dealing grenade at the enemv trenches 



and were thrown across under cover of night, 
but the troops crossing by them found on 
the other side a perpendicular wall forty 
feet high with a very thin ledge at the top 
where men might rest before completing the 
climb of a thousand feet more to the Bainsizza 
plateau, where the Austrians lay entrenched. 
Early in their operations the Italians tried 
to cross without adequate preparations, and 
for months thereafter the bodies of their 
comes from glacial caverns only a few miles dead lay on that narrow ledge where they 
up. All bridges had of course been destroyed had found no escape from the Austrians. 
by the Austrians. Pontoon bridges might be Ultimately, however, the invaders succeeded. 




Italian cavalry passing through Gorizia, winch they have captured horn the Austrians 



226 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




c Underwood & Underwood 
Scene in Montecitorie Square, with the Italian parliament building to the nujit, 
during the day when Italy's fate hung in the balance. Great crowds gathered 
around this historic building in Rome to hear the latest reports 



A newspaper correspondent tells the story 
thus: 

When the Italians did try again, and this time suc- 
ceeded, it was the biggest scheme ever inaugurated by 
the silent wizard of the Italian armies — Cadorna. Its 
very audacity contributed to its success. When dawn 
followed the night of the crossing, the Austnans could 
scarcely believe their eyes. An armv stood in front of 
them. On those bridges, constructed over that terrible 




e, Underwood i\ Underwood 
The Italian forces on the Isonzo front have captured this great Austrian fortress high 
up on Mount San Gabriele. I'lu-y are seen here bringing in the wounded 



gorge between darkness and dawn, 
an army corps had passed with 
scarcely the loss of a man. 

And it was done chiefly by putting 
out the Austrians' eyes. On the hills 
opposite the Austrian positions, and 
at exactly the same level, the Italians 
had been concentrating searchlights 
for days. I here seemed to be miles 
of them. On the night when the 
pontoons were to be thrown across 
they were turned full on the Austrians 
for the first time, dazzling them to 
such an extent that they could see 
nothing of the work going on under 
their noses and only a few hundred 
yards under at that. It was almost 
as near as if bridges were being thrown 
over Broadway while an enemy with 
preventive means was on top of the 
1 imes Building and searchlights were 
on the Hotel Knickerbocker. 

Naturally, the Austrians must 
have known that something was go- 
ing on. There was considerable fir- 
ing, and one bridge was damaged. 
But for the most part the crossing of 
the Isonzo was a complete surprise. 

While the searchlights streamed constantly over- 
head, the Italian engineers worked below in pitch dark. 
They had to drop their pontoon boats down that 
forty-foot wall on wooden skids, then join them across 
the rushing water, plank them over so that the troops 
could walk, and provide ladders for them to climb up 
the precipice on the Austrian side. 

Time and again the current swept boats away be- 
fore they were properly joined up. Frequently workers 
fell into the water and were carried 
instantly down. The constant can- 
nonade helped the searchlights in 
fooling the enemy and kept the sound 
of the bridgemaking from reaching 
the Austrians' ears. 

In the morning, when the Austrians 
realized what had happened, they 
precipitated themselves backward a 
distance of more than seven miles to 
their positions beyond Volnik. What 
almost happened, instead of their 
successful retirement to Volnik, was 
the first surrender of an enemy army 
in this war. 



With Isonzo in their posses- 
sion the Italians paused but 
briefly for recuperation. There 
were now two courses open 
to Cadorna's army. To the 
south, almost within range of 
his great siege guns, lay Trieste 
— Austria's chief seaport, the 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



227 



prize which the aspirations of the Italian 
people most eagerly coveted. But another 
lure was presented to the invaders. Off 
to the northeast lay the railroad centre 
of Villach, whence to Vienna was a scant 
200 miles. With the Austrian army in 
its disorganized state this gateway to 
the Austrian capital lay easily within Ca- 
dorna's grasp. In moving upon it he would 
not be sacrificing his grip upon Trieste, for 
success in that direction would cut 
the railroad connections of that sea- 



have chosen it to serve as the scene of some 
of the ghastly spectacles of his "Inferno." In 
active battle it must have been a scene of 
horror. There was no soil to receive the 
shells or deaden their explosion. The rocky 
cliffs and boulders multiplied the flying pieces 
of metal and added of their own substance 
to the storm. There were trenches there, 
made by the Austrians, who had turned the 
Carso into a powerful defensive position. 
But they were not dug with pick and shovel. 
The pneumatic drill and the rending dyna- 




Italian troops, having a few hours' respite, are dancing to the strains of an 
accordion many thousand feet above the sea level 



port with Austria, except by circuitous routes 
through Hungary. However, whether Trieste 
or Villach should be the objective of Ca- 
dorna's campaign the immediate task was 
the subjugation of the wild and gloomy 
territory immediately surrounding Gorizia, 
known as the Carso, and to this he at once 
addressed himself. 

The Carso is a desolate plain, out of which 
the underlying rock formations crop in the 
form of great boulders, unexpected cliffs and 
precipices, rock-lined gullies, caves and pits. 
No water is found in all its treeless expanse. 
Across it the winds sweep with cutting force 
by winter, and upon its arid face the sun 
beats down with relentless violence by sum- 
mer. So gloomv, desolate and melancholy 
is its appearance that Dante is known to 



mite were necessary for- operations in that 
rockbound terrain. 

We may pass over without detailed de- 
scription the story of General Cadorna's 
efforts to subdue the Carso. While they 
were still in progress, and while the world 
still wondered whether Villach or Trieste 
was his objective, there befell the Italian 
army, as the result of intrigue and treachery, 
a disaster so prodigious, so overwhelming, 
that all the victories won during eighteen 
months of the hardest fighting were at a 
stroke reversed. Gorizia was evacuated. 
The hard-won Alpine peaks and passes were 
abandoned. The Italian troops streamed 
back into their country followed by the vic- 
torious enemy. The northern Italian plain 
was overrun by the foe and Verona, Padua 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




1 . ! • V f ' ' 



© Underwood & Underwood 
The ruins of Kova Kas in the Italian fighting territory in line of the recent Italian advance 



and even regal Venice herself,were in danger 
of capture. 

Shortly after the capture of Gorizia 
August 27, 1 91 6, Italy declared war upon 
Germany. That this declaration had been 
so deferred was one of the mysteries of diplom- 
acy The two nations were emphatically 
at war. The Austrian troops whom Italy 
was fighting were financed and armed by 
Germany and largely led by German officers. 
Germany had sequestered Italian property 
and surrendered to Austria Italian prisoners 
who had entered upon German soil. But 
now the German belligerency became more 
pronounced. It had been her policy to at- 
tack one after another her weaker foes while 
holding France and Great Britain fast in 
the fields of Flanders and of France. Russia 
had now succumbed to intrigue, Serbia was 
annihilated, Roumania crushed. Italy came 
next in logical order. 

While busy elsewhere Germany had looked 
with apparent indifference upon the suc- 
cessive defeats Italy had inflicted upon her 
ally Austria. Between the military genius 
and efficiency of these two nations there can 
never be hereafter any comparison. Where- 
ever the two came into collision the Italians 
were victorious, however great the odds 
against them — as in fighting their way up the 
precipices and crags of the Dolomites and 
the Julian Alps to overwhelm the Austrian 
strongholds at the summit. But Germany 
now coming to Austrian assistance turned 
the tables. She withdrew from the pacified 



Russian front great bodies of troops and in 
connection with Austrian divisions under 
German command prepared for a decisive 
attack. 

The moment was propitious for the Teu- 
tons. And for making it so the United 
States, together with other Allies, must bear 
its share of the heavy blame; for in his 
long hard fight for Gorizia General Cadorna 
had reduced his store of munitions to its low- 
est ebb. Appeals were made to Great 
Britain and the United States for cannon, 
shells, locomotives, rails — all products of 
steel mills of which Italy has practically 
none. The response was slow and niggardly, 
especially on behalf of the United States, 
where the menace of the Italian situation was 
by no means comprehended. When the 
German attack was delivered the Italian 
army was in no condition of equipment to 
repulse it. 

More vital, at the outset, was the disaffec- 
tion of the Italian troops against whom the 
enemy directed his first assault. The spot 
chosen was on the lines at Tolmino, Monte San 
Gabriele and Monte San Daniele. General 
von Below was in command of the German 
forces, with Germans commanding Austrian 
divisions. Austrian names had disappeared 
entirely from the list of those in high com- 
mand. Before opening fire with their artillery 
the Germans put into effect the more subtile 
method of intrigue for breaking down their 
enemys' defense. An Italian authority ex- 
plains it thus: 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




A church destroyed by the Austro-German gunfire. 



© Underwood i 
This is St. Peter's in Gorizia 



Underwood 



"Opposite the Second Italian army the 
Austrians had placed regiments composed 
largely of Socialists, and these utilized the 
war-weariness of opponents, similarly in- 
fected, to convince the latter that an end of 
the fighting would come if the soldiers on both 
sides should refuse to kill each other any 
longer. Fraternization followed, and an ex- 
change of promises to do no more shooting. 
Then the demoralized — and demoralizing — 
Austrian division was withdrawn, and in its 
place were put German shock troops. These 
it was that, almost unopposed, smashed 
through the Italian line and began the flank- 
ing movement of which the results have been 
so disastrous to Italy." 

It was not all German intrigue that caused 
this disaffection. There was only too much 
evidence that Italian Socialists, the followers 
of the discredited ex-Premier Giolitti, paci- 
fists^nd even some agencies of the Vatican 
had worked to attain this discreditable end. 
Immediately after the disaster General 
Cadorna bitterly denounced the "treachery" 
— using that word — of certain divisions, 
while the War Office in its bulletin made the 
distinct charge of cowardice. But the harsh 
words were quickly suppressed by the cen- 
sors, and the defeat allowed to pass as though 
caused by the enemy's superior force. The 
fact remains, however, that certain regi- 
ments in abandoning certain strategic posi- 
tions did so apparently not because over- 
come by superior force, but cheering, singing 
and giving every indication that they were 



deluded into the belief that by their act the 
war would be ended. 

The gap opened by treachery on the 24th of 
October, 1917, was big enough to disorganize 
the whole Italian line and within three days 
the whole Italian army was in retreat. It 
must have been a bitter moment for the gal- 
lant Italian soldiers. From the mountain 
peaks which they had carried by such en- 
gineering skill, industry, persistence and loss 
of life, through the narrow passes which they 
had penetrated against the fire of the enemy's 
batteries on every peak and crest, they had 
now to retire with the exultant Austrians 
snapping at their heels. It was a mournful 
retreat but an orderly one. 

By November 1st the Italians had been 
driven from the line of theTagliamento, which 
they had fortified heavily and hoped to hold. 
They were short of artillery and of ammuni- 
tion. The enemy at this time reported the 
capture of 180,000 men and 15,000 guns. 
After another brief halt at the Livenza River, 
where, according to German reports, 17,000 
more prisoners and 800 guns were lost, the 
Italians fell back to the line of the Piave, 
which they were successfully defending in 
February, 1918. 

When the Tagliamento had been passed 
by the Teutons the world suddenly awoke 
to what was happening. The Allied govern- 
ments, that had looked complacently upon 
Italy fighting her own battles so long as she 
could fight them victoriously, perceived 
that her defeat now was a menace to their 



23° 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



whole cause. Not only would the Germans 
sweep down over the northern plains, taking 
Vicenza, Verona, and even glorious Venice 
for added counters in the game of brag and 
barter that would attend the final peace 
conference, but they might move to the west- 
ward and strike at France by the back door 
of the Riviera. With one accord France, 
Great Britain and the United States rushed 
to the rescue. 

A triune command representing the Allies 



perilous and insufficient defense. Furthei 
south, pointed out the strategists, was the 
Adige River, a line along which would extend 
from Lake Garda to the sea, and be therefore 
impregnable on either flank. True, this 
would uncover Venice and probably lead to 
her capture, but Venice, while artistically 
and historically important, was without mili- 
tary significance. 

At this all Italy sprang to arms. Sacrifice 
Venice, the Oueen of the Adriatic! Permit 




© Underwood & Underwood 
This is the sort of country the Italian forces have encountered along the Isonzo. They have had to storm almost impregnable 
mountain fortresses and endure bitter cold amid snow and ice on the mountain tops 



was created and on this General Cadorna 
was given place, General Foch and Sir Harry 
Wilson being the other two. As supreme 
commander of the Italian armies in the field 
General Armando Diaz succeeded Cadorna. 
In the early days of 1918 it appeared that 
the line of the Piave was to be to Italy what 
Verdun had been to France — a symbol of 
national determination to conquer. As in 
the case of Verdun the strategists said that 
the Piave was a place without strategical im- 
portance and indeed without real strategic 
strength. Occupation of it left the left 
Hank resting on the mountains — a very 



the Austrians to come back to swagger in 
the plaza of St. Mark's after having turned 
them out! Never! All Italy decreed the 
Piave line, and adopted for its rallying cry, 
"Da qui non se passe," the equivalent of 
the French motto at Verdun, "They shall 
not pass." Up too surged the hot blood of 
the Garibaldians of 1866 with their battle 
cry, "Italia fara da se!" 

Venice was in a panic, and indeed the 
whole world — to which the Adriatic city, 
throned in state upon her hundred isles, 
seemed a shrine sacred to all humanity — held 
its breath as it viewed the closer approach 




CUBA 



Government: 

President: 

Area: 

Population: 

Date of entering the war: 

Army (war basis) : 



Navy: 

Commerce with Germany 
before the war: 

Greatest exports: 

Reason for entering the war: 



Republic 

Mario G. Menocal 

44,215 square miles 

2,627,536 

April 7, 1917 

44,400 

The question of general con- 
scription throughout the 
island is now being de- 
bated 

1 cruiser 

Exports, $7,820,000; im- 
ports, $2,990,000 (1913) 

Tobacco and. sugar 

To protest against the vio- 
lation of the rights of 
international law and to 
back up the United States 
in her declaration of war 
against Germany 



PANAMA 



Government: 
President: 
Area: 

Population: 

Date of entering the war: 
Army (war basis): 
Navy 

Commerce with Germany 
before the war: 

Greatest exports: 

Reason for entering the war: 



Republic 

Dr. Ramon M. Valdes 

32.380 square miles 

400,000 

April 7, 1917 

None 



Exports, $690,000; imports. 
None (1913) 

Coffee, cocoa 

To aid the United States 
against Germany 

Panama was formerly a de- 
partment- of the Republic 
of Colombia but asserted 
its independence in 1903 
and was recognized as an 
independent republic by 
the Powers. 





CHINA 



SIAM 



Government: 
Ruler: 
Area: 

Population: 

Date of entering the war: 
Army: 
Navy: 

Commerce with Germany 
before the war: 

Greatest exports: 

Reason for entering the war: 



Absolute monarchy 

Chowfa Mafia Vajiravudh 

195.000 square miles 

8,500,000 

July 22, 1917 

80,000 

21 small vessels 

Exports, $1,102,476; im- 
ports, $1,205,585 (1914) 

Cattle, teak, gold 

To maintain the rights of 
small nations 

Siam is the only absolute 
monarchy in the ranks of 
the Allies who are fighting 
to overthrow despotism 
and establish democracy 
Feudalism is still in exist- 
ence in the kingdom 



Government: 

President (Acting): 

Area: 

Population: 

Date of entering the war: 

Army: 

Navy: 

Commerce with Germany 
before the war: 

Greatest exports: 

Reason for entering the war: 



Republic 
Feng Kuo-chang 
4.278,352 square miles 
336,000,000 
August 14, 1917 
700,000 

About 6 cruisers, 4 de- 
stroyers 

Exports, $1,404,150; im- 
ports. $1,927,541 (1914) 

Raw and manufactured 
silk, tea, beans 

To protest against Ger- 
many's ruthless subma- 
rine warfare 




232 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Italy's Alpine skiing troops preparing for action 



of the Huns to that treasure house of art and 
beauty. Curiously enough, it was the his- 
toric Huns under the ruthless Attila who, 
raiding northern Italy, caused its people to 
take refuge in the lagoons and islands whence 
in due time Venice uprose. Now after the 
lapse of centuries new barbarians were at the 
door of the city that had grown great, rich 
and beautiful. No people reverence and 
appreciate more their art treasures than the 
Venetians. Perhaps it may be admitted 
that they have a lively sense of the material 
advantages these treasures bring to them in 
normal times in the throngs of visitors from 
every land. From the earliest days of the 
war every imaginable precaution had been 
taken to preserve these treasures from pos- 
sible injury. The horses of St. Mark's de- 
scended from their elevated station above 
the cathedral's portico and were taken to 
Rome, where they were comfortably stabled 
in the ruined baths of Diocletian. St. Mark's 
itself was banked about with sand bags 
within and without; though meticulous as 
were the precautions, they would have 
availed little against a single shell from a 
giant Austrian howitzer. To protect the 
neighboring Doges' Palace it was at first 
planned to build an entirely distinct struc- 
ture of brick around and over it. But en- 
gineers reported that the piles on which the 



and it was 
shipped to 



Palace, like all the rest of Venice, stands 
would not support the additional load, so 
that project was abandoned, and the more 
exposed portions of the edifice banked up 
with sandbags. The statue of Colleone, 
esteemed by artists the greatest in the 
world, was covered by sandbags until the 
near approach of the Germans suggested 
that not merely destruction but theft 
needed to be guarded against, 
lowered from its pedestal and 
Rome. 

So the Italians clung to the line of the 
Piave with a persistence that denoted real 
soldierly devotion. Though the enemy had 
broken over at Zenson, the gap he made there 
in the Italian lines was too narrow to be 
serviceable. On the lower river the Italian re- 
sistance could not be shaken. Floating de- 
fenses were employed with great skill. Not 
only were flat-bottomed English monitors of 
light draft and with the heaviest guns brought 
into service, but the Italians built floats on 
which they mounted powerfulnavalgunswhich 
drove the invaders away from the river banks. 
Early in November the Teutons began cross- 
ing the low delta of the Piave near its mouth. 
The movement was most menacing to Venice 
as it brought the enemy troops within twenty 
miles of that beautiful city — almost close 
enough for the Kaiser's guns to do what they 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



233 



had done to the cathedral at Rheims and 
the Cloth Hall at Ypres. 

But the line of the Piave was not the only 
danger spot for Italy. In the north the foe 
was coming down the passes of the Dolomites 
and the Venetian Alps with the intent of 
taking the Italian Piave line in the flank and 
rear. The movement which culminated in 
the later days of November, 191 7, was most 
menacing. The Teutons outnumbered the 
Italians by two to one — both in men and in 
guns. They suffered from but one weakness. 
For supplies and communications they were 
dependent on a single railroad to Trent and 
various highways through the mountain 
passes. A single snowstorm would inter- 
rupt supplies; a long period of stormy 
weather might be disastrous. Winter was 
upon them and the invaders pushed the 
fighting. During the week, December 4th 
to December 10th, he attacked fiercely 
all along the mountain front, captured, ac- 
cording to Berlin, 15,000 prisoners, and 
seized some positions not without strategic 
value. 

But as the roar of the great guns and the 



rattle of the lesser arms died away came 
noiselessly through the air the delicate and 
feathery missiles that were to end, for the 
time at least, Austro-German exploits on 
that front. The snow, light, feathery, but 
insistent, came silently down, filling the 
mountain passes, blocking the railroad, shut- 
ting off the invaders from their base. It 
was no time for fighting. The work of the 
army thus entrapped was to keep open its 
communications. During this interruption 
the relief forces sent by France and England 
to Italy's aid came up and on the last day of 
1917 delivered a crushing blow on the in- 
vaders' front. The Allies were everywhere 
successful, and the offensive passed from the 
Teutons to them. During the weeks imme- 
diately following there was spirited fighting 
in the air, fleets of as many as twenty-five 
planes to a side being not infrequently en- 
gaged. But in the air, in the flooded dis- 
tricts at the mouth of the Piave, and on land 
the advantage had now turned to the Allies 
and on the 8th of January, 1918, head- 
quarters reported that all danger to Venice 
was now averted. 




Italians bombarding Austrian positions on Mount Cucco 



CHAPTER IX 



THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION — DEGRADATION OF THE COURT — EASE WITH 
WHICH THE GOVERNMENT WAS OVERTHROWN — ABDICATION OF THE CZAR — ■ 
THE ARMY WITH THE PEOPLE — LENINE AND TROTZKY GERMAN IN- 
TRIGUES — FAILURE OF THE BREST-LITOVSK. CONFERENCE — THE OUTLOOK 



M 



"AN does not yet know, 
can hardly venture to 
imagine, what great 
changes in the political 
and social structure of the world 
may attend the end of this war. 
President Wilson upon entering 
it said that one purpose of the 
United States in drawing the 
sword was to make the world 
safe for democracy. But to 
the protection of existing 
democracies shall there be 
added the extension of democ- 
racy? Shall we see Germany 
discarding its present system 
of absolutism tempered onlv 
by the right of the Reichstag 
fruitlessly to grumble, in favor 
of a constitutional monarchy, 
or even a republic? It does 
not seem mere accident that 
of the four considerable na- 
tions included in the Teu- 
tonic alliance — Germany, 
Austria-Hungarv, Bulgaria 
and 1 urkey — every one is an autocracy even 
though camouflaged by a few constitutional 
limitations, while of the twenty-eight govern- 
ments more or less actively allied against the 
Teutons only one — Siam — is an absolute 
monarchy, while nineteen are republics, and 
eight constitutional monarchies with the 
powers of the monarch so limited that — as in 
Great Britain, Belgium and Italy — the gov- 
ernment is essentially republican. 

In the earlier days of the war this align- 
ment was less impressively in favor of the 
Allies. There was a flaw in their democratic 
front. One of their chief figures, the nation 
which perhaps of all save Germany did most 
to make the war inevitable, was not merely 
an absolute monarchy, but an autocracy un- 
relieved by any democratic qualifications. 



Russia seemed in curious company fighting 
beside England and France against the ex- 
tension of absolutism. Pro-Germans in all 
lands made the most of the unnatural part- 
nership, pointing to it as evidence of the in- 
sincerity of the other and dominant partners. 

The moment came when the Russian 
people themselves removed this cause for 
cynicism and distrust. Whatever the Rus- 
sian Revolution, the story of which I am 
about to tell, may give the world in the end 
as an example of a government created by 
the people, it has at least overthrown the 
old blood-stained Czardom. It has ended 
the government of the knout and the gallows, 
the secret dungeon and the snow-bound Si- 
berian trail. It has destroyed much evil, 
and while at the moment the Russian people 
seem to falter and fumble in their gropings 
after a way out of their disorders, let us re- 
member that none of the revolutions of his- 
tory was brought to full fruition in less than 
a term of years. We think of a republic as 
the necessary fruit of a revolution. But 
France had not only the Terror and the 
Napoleonic phase to pass through, but even 
a period of restoration of the monarchy before 
that perfect fruit of her revolution was ripe. 
And in our own revolution — led by essentially 
orderly and conservative men — the famous 
Declaration of 1776 had lain in its pigeon- 
hole for sixteen years before the Constitution 
which was to give it enduring vitality was 
adopted by the states. So distinguished an 
historian as John Fiske pronounced the 
period betwixt the breaking of the yoke of 
George III at Yorktown and the date of the 
ratification of the Constitution, "The Critical 
Period of American History." 

Russia is now — 1918 — at the beginning of 
its critical period. Its skies are red and its 
atmosphere clouded. There is much clamor 
of dissentient tongues, and seemingly little 
of patience and the constructive spirit. But 



235 



236 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




< Underwood & Underwood 
Machine guns mowing down the mobs during a Leninist uprising in Petrograd by the government troops. Scores of persons 
were killed and wounded before the crowd escaped into the side streets. In the foreground can be seen a mother shielding 
her chdd 



the philosophic historian knows that revolu- 
tions never go back. The old Russia of the 
Czar will never return. Exile by adminis- 
trative process is as dead as the lettres de 
cachet which used to open the doors of the 
Bastile — inward. The dungeons of the for- 
tress of St. Peter and St. Paul below the lap- 
ping waters of the Neva will be show places 
like the cell of the Prisoner of Chillon. The 
Little Father is deposed and there will be no 
other unnatural parents of his sort for the 
Russian people. 

The ease with which the Russian revolu- 
tion, in its initial steps, was accomplished 
must long be a matter of wonder to all save 
those who were directly concerned in it. In 
an earlier chapter one of its first symptoms 
was referred to in the story of the assassina- 
tion of the charlatan monk, Rasputin. 

In the latter part of 1916 there had been 
dissension in the Russian Duma, that repre- 
sentative body which the Czar had been 
forced to create against his will, which sat 
only in face of the ill-concealed hostility of 
the monarch and his ministers, and which 
had thus far been able to accomplish nothing 
of material service for the Russian people. In 



many ways it was not unlike the States-Gen- 
eral forced on Louis XVI and which proved 
the entering wedge of the French Revolution. 
The Russian body was due to meet on the 
25th of January, 1917, but prior [to that the 
government postponed its session for one 
month. Plausible excuses were made about 
the necessity for giving the new Premier, 
Prince Golitzin, time to familiarize himself 
with the duties and the record of his office. 
But the people were suspicious and grumbled. 
They noticed that all other deliberative 
bodies, official or unofficial, the Zemstvos and 
the general congress of the Union of the 
Towns had been likewise forbidden, at the 
instance of the Premier of the time, Sturmer, 
a man who had never denied his sympathy 
with Germany, and his opposition to the war 
in which Russia was engaged. As a result of 
this opposition he was forced out of office — 
the one great victory won by the Duma. To 
him succeeded Prince Golitzin. Under the new 
regime the provocative policy of the govern- 
ment continued. The numbers and arro- 
gance of the secret police were greatly in- 
creased. Machine guns, withdrawn from 
the army, were mounted on Petrograd roofs 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



237 



as though for service against the people. 
News from the army was all disconcerting. 
Here the troops had no food. There they 
were out of ammunition. At another place 
they had no leadership — or what was worse, 
treacherous commanders. All Petrograd 
swarmed with German spies, who whispered 
that a separate peace was under considera- 
tion — that the Czar was nearly ready basely 
to desert his allies, and force his country 
under Hindenburg's heel. Discontent be- 
came rife everywhere. 

There is some reason to believe that the 
revolution which grew out of this situation 
was deliberately fomented by those who 
would profit most by its suppression. The 
court party which surrounded the Czar was 
deeply permeated with pro-German senti- 
ment. The Czarina Alexandra is a German 
princess deeply imbued with Hohenzollern 
convictions and ambitions. Courtiers are 
always more aristocratic than the monarch 
himself, and the swarm of privileged para- 
sites who hung about Nicholas could not 
understand why he was fighting on the side 
of democracy and hesitated but little to tell 
him so. Rasputin, during his period of high 
favor, had been nothing short of a German 
paid agent. To him succeeded in the im- 



perial confidence Alexander Protopopoff, 
Minister of the Interior, a politician who 
starting as a liberal leader became a reac- 
tionary; after shining as an orator in support 
of the cause of the Allies became an emissary 
of the Kaiser; after being a true representa- 
tive of the people descended to the ignominy 
of being their most sinister foe. Moreover, 
he was under suspicion — conviction almost 
— of being a German agent, for he had been 
detected in secret conference with a German 
attache in Stockholm where he had stopped 
on his way back from an Allied conference in 
London. 

Mingled with political perfidy there was in 
Protopopoff a curious strain of mysticism, 
which made him the dupe and tool of Ras- 
putin, and caused his participation in the 
mystic seances which the neurotic court of 
the time afFected and in which affairs of state 
were determined. 

Though the people were quiet, there were 
those at court who knew the extent of the 
unrest that stirred them to their depths. 
These plotters, the German agents, the 
neurasthenics, the mere parasites who had 
adopted the Pompadour's maxim, "After us 
the deluge," saw that their tenure of office 
was getting very doubtful. The Czar, intel- 




© Underwood & Underwood 
The first photograph to arrive in this country of the Bolshevik, "Red Guard," about which much has been heard during the 

overturning of the Provisional Government 



2 3 8 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




The Czar on .1 trip ol inspection at the front 



lectually a weakling, would neither break 
with the Allies and negotiate a separate peace 
as the court party desired, nor prosecute the 
war with vigor as the nation wished. Months 
after, when the revolution had thrown open 
the secret archives, there was discovered a 
bundle of letters exchanged between Emperor 
William and Czar Nicholas at the time of 
the Russo-Japanese war. They were signed 
in cousinly style "Willy" and "Nicky" and 
revealed the fact that even at that day the 




The Br 



two monarchs were ready to ride roughshod 
over the constitutional limitations imposed 
by their governments and make personal 
treaties, or by individual agreements break 
established alliances. That revelation, how- 
ever, succeeded the revolution. It had no 
part in fomenting it. 

It is easy to see how the intriguers about 
the court might reckon that an abortive 
revolution which they would at once suppress, 
would strengthen them with the timid Czar, 
and give them new powers with 
which remorselessly to crush the 
rising tide of democracy in Russia. 
But they made one serious error 
in their calculations. They were 
successful in provoking the revo- 
lution, but failed utterly to pro- 
vide themselves with the power 
for its suppression. They had not 
informed themselves as to the 
spread of popular and democratic 
sentiments in the army, nor could 
thev understand how deeply the 
public sense of decency had been 
affronted by the orgies of sensual- 
ism and mysticism of which Ras- 
putin had been the incarnation. 
situation in Russia And above all they were unable 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



239 




These are a few oi the women in Russia who took up arms against Germany when the Russian army was disorganized. 

are credited with taking one hundred prisoners 



Thev 



to comprehend the deep resentment felt by all 
the manhood of Russia for the betrayal of the 
army by treacherous ministers and corrupted 
generals. 

The war had not been unpopular in Russia. 
The peasant is an ideal soldier, brave, dogged 
and thoroughly amenable to discipline. 
In this war his early successes in East Prussia 
and Galicia had given him a sense 
of victory and personal dignity 
which caused him to resent bitter- 
ly the betrayal which manifested 
itself in conflicting orders and a 
munition famine at the most crit- 
ical moments. 

Severe privations came to re- 
enforce the discontent caused by 
political conditions. The army's 
needs had strained the railroad 
facilities of the country to the ut- 
most, and for lack of an official 
plan the cities were left without 
the grain and other supplies that 
crowded the depots in the farm- 
ing districts. Hunger stalked in 
Petrograd and Moscow. The. 
bread line appeared. Some bak- 
ers' shops were raided, and work- 



men's wives organized processions of pro- 
test. March 9, 1917, the streets, for no ap- 
parent reason, were crowded with citizens. 
Everywhere the occasional bodies of troops 
which were stationed in the city frater- 
nized w T ith the people and gave assurances 
ot friendship. Even the Cossacks, sup- 
posed to be drilled and disciplined to a 




A few of the 
the 



© Underwood & Underwood 
Kronstadt sailors and Bolshevik troops who helped to overturn 
Provisional Government in session at Taiiride Palace 



240 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




• C ] Underwood & Underwood 
People of the revolution removing the royal emblems from all buildings 



point that had stifled every human emotion, 
were outspoken in their promises that for the 
first time they would be found on the people's 
side. Day by day the ceaseless shifting of 
the street mobs and the endless clash of de- 
bates in the streets continued. Mischief 
was clearly brewing, but only those very close 
to the inner circle could tell in what form it 
would appear. Sunday the nth the police 




© Underwood & Underwood 
Great mass meeting addressed by Nikolai Lenine in front of the Winter Palace in 

Petrojirad 



and some part of the soldiery 
fired upon the people. But it 
was mere casual street fight- 
ing. Neither side had any ob- 
jective point in view. Civil- 
ians would not move on and 
soldiers fired, or the soldiers 
were arrogant and received an 
irresponsible shot or two from 
hot-headed citizens. 

Sunday word came from the 
Palace to the Duma that it 
should disperse. It flatly re- 
fused. This more than any 
fighting on the quais and 
places marked the true begin- 
ning of the revolution. The 
elected popular branch of the 
government refused to sur- 
render its functions at the de- 
mand of officials responsible to 
the Czar alone. That the 
government dared not compel 
dissolution by force was evidence that it 
lacked confidence in its own power. 

Not only did the Duma remain in session 
but its leaders took upon themselves the du- 
ties of propagandists, going about from bar- 
racks to camps pleading at once for support 
and the maintenance of order. Never was a 
revolution attended with so little violence 
and it is significant that one of the first acts 
of the popular assembly was 
to abolish the death penalty — 
a resolution that was adhered 
to even at times when cool- 
headed and humane men 
doubted its wisdom. Even 
ProtopopofF, whose name was 
hated throughout all Russia, 
found sanctuary and protec- 
tion in the Duma when all 
alone, haggard and unkempt he 
tremblingly gave himself up. 
All sorts of functionaries of 
the old regime flocked to the 
chamber where committees 
were feverishly making new 
constitutions, orators de- 
nouncing the dead past and 
planning new Utopias and in- 
ternationals preaching the 
virtues of an immediate peace. 
All found refuge and safety. 
The maddest mobs vented 
their furv on the members of 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



241 



the police, but with remarkable self-restraint 
the leaders of the revolutionary powers show- 
ed mercy to even the most notorious members 
of the "dark forces" who appealed for pro- 
tection. There was stdl some street fighting. 
The fortress-like building of the Admiralty 
on the Nevski Prospect withstood a siege of 
thirty-six hours, surrendering only at the 
threat that it would be blown to pieces by 
the big guns from the fortress of SS. Peter 



in to Petrograd fraternized with the revo- 
lutionists. There was every reason to be- 
lieve that the rest of the army, even that 
portion about the person of the Czar, held 
like sentiments. Moscow accepted the revo- 
lution. Telegrams of adhesion came pouring 
in from the country districts. The confla- 
gration was well under way and none now 
might stop it. 

Curiously enough little heed was given to 




For days the streets of Petrograd were filled with soldier mobs such as this, while thousands ot secret police against whom the 
people sought vengeance were hunted in cellar and garret like rats 



and Paul. Numbers of the police took refuge 
on the housetops where Protopopoff had 
mounted machine guns, and defended them- 
selves desperately. When captured they 
were savagely slain, for all the hatred of the 
mob seemed centered upon the police op- 
pressors. 

Meantime none could tell the temper of 
the huge armies at the front. Nor was it 
possible to forecast the attitude of the Czar, 
who was with those armies far from the re- 
bellious capital. But all troops that came 



the Czar. In the French Revolution the 
main conflict raged about the person- of the 
King. At Petrograd political and social 
systems, programmes and reforms held the 
attention of the revolutionists. Nobody in 
the Duma seems to have suggested deposing 
Nicholas, or even securing his person. But 
on the 14th of March, as his train was on the 
way to the capital, the tracks were torn up 
by revolutionaries, and he was brought to a 
stop. Informed by bulletins of affairs at 
the capital the Czar, little as he knew about 



242 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



the details of his govern- 
ment, saw the necessity 
of making concessions 
to the rising tide of 
democracy. Summon- 
ing General Ruszkv in 
the small hours of the 
morning he told him 
that he had determined 
to grant the Duma a 
ministry responsible to 
itself alone. The proc- 
lamation lay on the 
table before him in his 
private car. But Rusz- 
ky knew it was too late. 
His army and that of 
General Brussilov had 
already given their ad- 
herence to the revolu- 
tion. The time had 
passed when the people 

would thank] Lilly accept Nikolai Lenine, Bolshevik premier of Russia, on horseback, to the right of picture, addressing 
Small favors at the a pacifist manifestation in the front of the Winter Palace in Petrograd 

hands of Nicholas. Def- 




& Underwood 



erentially, however, he suggested a confer- 
ence with leading generals and the revolution- 
ary leaders. When that had been accom- 
plished it was apparent that no course remain- 
ed to the fallen monarch but abdication. 
Guchkoffand Shulgin came down from Petro- 
srrad to the little town of Pskov where the 



\veain\ 

-4AUIL 7°' 

_JJ, in rave 




One of the first measures of the Bolshevik government was to take control ot all the hanks 
Bolsheviki troops are seen here guarding the state bank at Petrograd 



Czar's special train lay pulled up on a siding, 
with the engine disconnected and tracks 
guarded against escape. Worn and worried, 
wearied and sorely depressed, the monarch 
sat in his private car with but a single at- 
tendant. 

"What do you want me to do?" he asked 
wearily. 

You must abdicate 
or of vour son," 
said one of the deputies, 
"making the Grand 
Duke Michael Alexan- 
drovitch regent during 
his minority." 

Nicholas was plunged 
in thought. "No," he 
said after an apparent 
struggle, "I cannot be 
separated from my boy. 
I will relinquish the 
throne to the Grand 
Duke Michael, my 
brother." 

Sitting at a table he 
wrote the act of abdi- 
cation. W T hen he laid 
his pen down he turned 
to the others present 
with a great sigh of re- 
lief. "Now," said he, 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



243 




Recruits for the regiments of women about to enlist. In the midst of the confusion of the revo- 
lution women began to drill in the streets of Petrograd 



" I can go and be with my flowers at Tsarskoe 
Selo." With so little of ceremony and pomp 
was the overthrow of the oldest autocracy in 
Europe consummated. 

But the drama was not to end thus speed- 
ily. The Czar, who claimed, and probably 
believed, that the Imperial crown had been 
placed upon his head 
by Deity itself, was 
not to be permitted to 
lightly pass that divine 
gift on to another. 
When the news of the 
proposed regency was 
reported to the Duma 
a storm broke. In 
that body, and the 
more powerful but less 
constitutional body, 
"The Council of Work- 
men's and Soldiers' 
Deputies," were strong 
republican factions 
which desired to do 
away with all the trap- 
pings of royalty. So 
bitter were their pro- 
tests that the Grand 
Duke himself rejected 
the proffered regency 
and the reins of power 



passed into the hands 
of a Provisional Gov- 
ernment, the mem- 
bers of which were 
appointed by the 
Duma. 

That was March 
16, 1917. In just one 
week the people had 
supplanted the au- 
tocracy, the Czar and 
his parasites had been 
ousted, the army had 
been won over to the 
revolution, 'the dun- 
geons had been 
opened, the political 
prisoners brought 
home from Siberia 
with loud acclaim, 
and everywhere the 
Imperial standard of 
Russia had fallen be- 
fore the red flag. 
All this having 
been accomplished the real troubles in Russia 
began. 

We have spoken of the Duma as the one 
constitutional assemblage left in Russia. 
Technically it was so, since it was all that 
was left of the ancient regime overthrown bv 
the revolution. Its members had been elect- 




be first detachment ol the 



'Battalion ot Death," as these first 200 girls called themselves, 
being drilled in Petrograd 



244 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




SOLDIERS OF THE REPUBLIC IN FLIGHT 

On the heels of a brilliant offensive on the Russian front, to which Russia was pointing as her denial of charges of unfaithfulness 

retreat, and that mutiny had broken out within the Russian ranks. Revolutionary troops yielded miles of Galician front and the Teuton 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



24S 




BEFORE THE GERMAN ADVANCE offensive into a disastrous 



246 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




A Petrograd street scene during a recent proclamation to the Russian nation by the Russian government announcing that 
Kaledine and KornilofF, assisted by the Imperialists and Constitutional Democrats, have raised a revolt and declared war on 
the Don legion against the people and the revolution 

ed under authority proclaimed by the Czar, 
and may be said to have represented the 
more conservative of the revolutionary forces. 
They included the college professors, journal- 
ists, literary and professional men — the in- 
tellectuals of the progressive movement in 
Russia. 

But at the very outset of the revolution 
another body, wholly spontaneous and self- 
created, the Council of Workmen, came into 
being. With it cooperated the radicals, the 
extremists and firebrands of the hour. While 
the Duma bore to the Russian revolution 
something of the relation in which the Na- 
tional Assembly stood to the French revolu- 
tion, tins latter body had more of the nature 
of the great clubs of the Jacobins and the 
Girondists which in the earlier revolt dom- 
inated the authorized assembly. Extending 
its scope to include soldiers and becoming 
known as the "Council of Workmen's and 
Soldiers' Deputies" — or more briefly as the 
soviet — this became the dominant force in 
Russia, endorsing or vetoing the acts of the 
Duma at its pleasure though wholly without 
authority. It was at first bitterly opposed 
to the plan of a provisional government, de- 
siring to proclaim the Russian republic 
© Underwood & underwood without more ado. It was won over to the 
Kindly treatment tendered to Russian prisoners by the more moderate view by Alexander Kerenskv, 

Germans while Germany s propaganda workers spread the 1 -ji" J J 1 .. u 

tide of peace throughout Russia a brilliant devoted revolutionist who sat 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



H7 




During the recent agitations in Petrograd ambulances were busy, for hardly a day passed lor weeks without street fighting of 

more or less serious nature 




The famous 
forces at the 
government 



© Underwood & Underwood 
Kremlin in Moscow wrecked by the Bolshevik 
outbreak of the revolt against the provisional 



both in the Duma and the council. But even 
his fiery appeals could not long keep the 
forces of radical socialism in the council in 
leash. 

The United States was first to recognize 
the revolutionary government in Russia and 
welcome it to a place among nations. On 
March 21st Ambassador David R. Fran- 
cis performed this pleasant function. Other 
nations followed swiftly. The world indeed 
rejoiced with the Russian people at the ap- 
parent creation of a new democracy where a 
bloodstained autocracy had long ruled. 

But not many weeks had passed when it 
became only too apparent that Russia would 
have to fight desperately for its democracy, 
for its national existence in fact. Just as 
France had had to fight all Europe because 
the monarchies by which she was surrounded 
would not tolerate a republic in their midst, 
so new Russia had to meet from without the 
implacable hostility of Germany. Her dan- 
ger from within sprung, oddly enough, not 
from partisans of her deposed Czar, but from 
the more extreme type of her revolutionists, 
who seemed to be duped into playing the 
Kaiser's hand for him. 

For Germany, of course, the great imme- 
diate desideratum was to get Russia out of 
the war so that the German armies then held 
on the Russian front might be sent west to 



248 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



crush the Allies in France. Whether ac- 
complished by battle or intrigue this was 
Germany's chief end, and she employed both 
methods. The demoralization of the Rus- 
sian armies was so far progressed that it was 
no difficult task to overthrow them and in 
August, under Prince 
Leopold of Bavaria, the 
German forces pressed 
into Russia, moving their 
line far to the eastward, 
taking Riga, and an- 
nouncing with much 
flourish their purpose of 
continuing their invasion 
to Petrograd. But about 
that time affairs so 
shaped themselves that it 
became apparent to the 
German Foreign Office 
that the time for the 
velvet glove had arrived 
and the claws of the army 
were withdrawn. All 
along the Russian lines 
suave and ingratiating 
agents began mingling 
with the soldiers of the 
disorganized states. The 
Kaiser's disgust and un- 
easiness with the war, his 
eagerness for peace were 
the chief themes of their 
conversation. But most 
of them were interna- 
tional socialists of whom 
the German government 
had not scrupled to make 
use in intrigue in war 
time, though savage in its 
repressive measures in 
time of peace. These 
kept at the Russian soldiers with the time- 
honored arguments that the workingman 
rights the war and pays the taxes, while the 
capitalist reaps all the profits. They urged 
their hearers to refuse to fight on the ground 
that the interests of workingmen in all coun- 
tries were identical. At points they spread the 
false news that the new government was now 
engaged in distributing the land of the an- 
cient proprietors among the people, and that 
soldiers who remained at the front instead of 
going home to participate would fare but 
badly. The Russian peasant is above all 
things hungry for land, and the result was a 



general desertion, whole regiments fading 
away. 

About the middle of August chaos began 
to come upon military and political Russia. 
Intrigue, treachery, selfish ambitions, Utopian 
ideas, impracticable political theories, jeal- 




The great cathedral at Kronstadt, once deemed Russia's invincible naval base, but now a 

hotbed of anarchy 



ousies and fanaticism were everywhere. Over 
this period we must pass hastily, only pausing 
to plead with the reader that he keep ever 
in mind the fact that just such a ferment of 
chemicalization, just such a bubbling of the 
melting pot must always attend the remaking 
of a nation. 

A reorganization of the Provisional Gov- 
ernment in July had made Kerensky prac- 
tical dictator. A man of indomitable cour- 
age, though physically frail and indeed on 
the verge of dissolution, Kerensky flung him- 
self into the turmoil with compelling energy. 
He had to combat every form of intrigue. 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



249 



The "dark forces," though 
crippled, were not dead. The 
sympathizers and agents of 
the late Czar were active. 
German spies and agents were 
everywhere trying to under- 
mine the loyalty of the army. 
They even brought into Russia 
large quantities of the prohib- 
ited vodka and sought the 
favor of Ivan, the peasant 
soldier, by dispensing it liber- 
ally. So active was the prop- 
aganda in behalf of the late 
Czar that it was deemed the 
part of wisdom to remove him 
from his flowers at Tsarskoe 
Selo and send him to Tobolsk 
in Siberia, whither in days of 
his power he had sent so many 
exiles. 

Early in September the un- 
rest in the Russian armies took the form of 
organized revolt. General KornilofF, Com- 
mander in Chief, demanded of Premier Ke- 
rensky that he step down and surrender 
power to one of the general's adherents. 
Kerensky refusing and taking vigorous steps 
to meet this new treason, KornilofF made a 
threatening move of his army upon the 
capital. He failed, however, to receive ex- 
pected support, his army refused to follow 
him and in a few brief but threatening weeks 
the peril was past. 

It then seemed that Keren- 
sky was more powerful than 
ever. He created a coalitior 
cabinet containing representa- 
tives of all the political parties 
of any standing. He under- 
took to bring about under- 
standing and cooperation be- 
tween the bourgeoisie and tax- 
paying forces, and the revolu- 
tionary democracy. Except 
among the extreme radicals 
this government found favor 
but they were untiring in 
agitation and opposition. 

Among the active opponents 
of Kerensky at this time were 
two men destined to be 
leaders in the next phase of 
Russia's struggle — Nicolai 
Lenine and Leon Trotzky. 
Neither one went by his real 




© Underwood & Underwood 
These troopers ot the celebrated Red Guard and the armored car are guarding Smol- 
ney Institute, the headquarters of the Bolshevik government in Petrograd 



name — a situation not uncommon among 
Russian revolutionists. Lenine was of a good 
Russian family, had enjoyed a university ed- 
ucation and became associated with a revo- 
lutionary group while in college. His elder 
brother was summarily hanged, with but the 
pretext of a trial, for alleged participation in a 
plot to wreck a train by which the Czar was 
travelling. This naturally fixed the younger 
brother's revolutionary views, and his life was 
spent in socialistic and revolutionary agita- 




The flight of the Russian infantry following the alarm that the German cavalry 
had broken through the last defenses and were preparing to annihilate any and all 
Russians who bore any resemblance to soldiers 



2 5° 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




The deposed Czar of Russia. When Nicholas II abdicated, he 
brought to a close that period of Russian history extending from 
Peter the Great and the entry of Russia into European politics to the 
rise of popular government 



tion. He was a figure in every 
uprising, and had a consider- 
able personal following when 
the war broke out, though he 
was then in Cracow, directing 
the revolutionary movement 
in Russia from exile. Marked 
favor shown to Lenine by the 
German government — notably 
a passport granted him to 
return from Switzerland 
through Germany to Russia — 
aroused the suspicion that he 
was a German agent. This 
suspicion was not allayed by 
his acts, all of which up to 
191 8, at which moment his 
power was greatest, seemed to 
be directly in the German in- 
terest. 



Leon Trotzky, like Lenine, had been 
a revolutionist all his life. He had been 
a Siberian exile, but escaped, and was 
expelled in turn from Germany, France, 
Switzerland and Spain because of the 
plots against the Russian government 
he strove to engineer from those coun- 
tries. For months before the Russian 
revolution he had been resident in the 
East Side district of New York, earning 
a scanty living by writing for a socialist 
paper and lecturing before societies of 
Russian Jews. It was generally re- 
ported that the funds necessary to 
take him back to Russia in the time 
of her greatest stress were supplied 
from German sources. 

Among Lenine's early achievements 
had been the organization of the Bol- 
shevist, or Maximalist faction among 
Russian revolutionists. Essentially the 
words mean the faction that claims the 
most, is most extreme — in contradis- 
tinction to the Minimalists, or compar- 
ative conservatives among the revolu- 
tionaries. This element he had led 
in the abortive revolution in 1903, and 
it promptly sprung to life in the success- 
ful revolution of 1917. Mainly a work- 
men's party, it did not represent a 
Russian majority though it gained con- 
trolling numbers in the Soviet. There 
under the leadership of Lenine and 
Trotzky it fought Kerensky's govern- 
ment by parliamentary means, until 




The German artillery having located the Russian Headquarters have dropped shells 

right in its midst 




LIBERIA 



Government: 
President: 
Area: 

Population: 

Date of entering the war: 
Army: 
Navy: 

Commerce with Germany 
before the war: 

Greatest exports: 

Reason for entering the war: 



Republic 

Daniel Howard 

40.000 square miles 

2,100.000 

August 7, 1917 

None 

None 

Exports. $230,000; imports, 
$4 60,000 

Rubber, coffee and ivory 

To endorse the action of 
the United States, whose 
government and constitu- 
tion Liberia has closely 
copied 

The population of Liberia 
is composed almost ex- 
clusively of negroes 



SAN MARINO 



Government: 

Ruler: 

Area: 

Population: 

Revenue: 

Expenditure: 

National Debt: 

Army: 

Navy: 

Greatest exports: 

Reason for entering the war: 



Independent Republic ("the 
oldest stale in Europe) 

Two regents (appointed 
every six months) 

38 square miles 

11.648 

$193,600 

$125,200 

None 

1,000 

None 

Wine, cattle 

At war with Austria only, 
on account of her treaty 
and friendship with Italy 
whose territory surrounds 
her 





BRAZIL 



Government: 

President: 

Area: 

Population: 

Date of entering war: 

Army: 

Navy: 



Commerce with Germany 
before the war: 

Greatest exports: 

Reason for entering the war: 



Republic 

Wenceslao Braz 

3,300,000 square miles 

21,700,000 

October 20. 1917 

f,o i.ooo 

About 2 dreadnoughts, 3 

cruisers, 10 destroyers, 3 

submarines 

Exports, S55.770.000; im- 
ports. $60,810,000 (.1913) 

Coffee and rubber 

To protest against Ger- 
many's submarine war- 
fare. Influenced by Port- 
u g a 1 — the mother- 
country's — breaking with 
Germany 



BOLIVIA 



Government:- 
President: 
Area: 

Population: 

Date of severing relations: 
Army: 
Navy: 

Commerce with Germany 
before the war: 

Greatest exports: 
Reason for severing rela- 
tions: 



Republic 

J. Gutierrez ■ 

708,000 square miles 

2,900,000 

April 13, 1917 

88,000 

None 

Exports, $3,185,495; im- 
ports, $4,250,120 
Silver, tin, rubber 

In accordance with the 
action of other South 
American republics in re- 
pudiating Germany's in- 
human methods of war- 
fare 




252 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




© Undenvuud & Underwood 
Courts of Justice and High Tribunal on Liteini Prospect burned by the revolutionists 



Nov. 7th it boldly declared itself in revolt, 
seized public buildings and offices, decreed 
the overthrow of the existing government 
and created a ministry of its own. There 
was little fighting. The Petrograd garrison 
espoused the cause of the Bolsheviki, a 
friendly cruiser was brought up the Neva, 
machine guns were posted at strategic points 
and all was over in a day or two. The 
Duma was obliterated, the Provisional Gov- 
ernment wiped out, Kerensky driven to 
flight and Russia was in the hands of its most 
radical element. In Moscow the fighting 
was more persistent but in time that city too 
succumbed. Only General Kaledin and 
his army of Cossacks remained unsubdued. 

Since that time Russia has been in anarchy. 
It had been charged that theBolshevist leaders 
were in the pay of Germany. They straight- 
way set about justifying the charge by pro- 
claiming that "the consummation of an im- 
mediate peace is demanded in all countries both 
belligerent and neutral." This was the 
prompt espousal of a course in which Germany 
had been earnestly enlisted for two years. 

The Allies had coldly refused to state 
terms, or to enter into any negotiations with 
a burglar still loaded with swag and intent 
upon keeping most of it. But Lenine and 
Trotzky at a stroke took Russia out of the 
body of Allies by taking up negotiations 
with Germany for a separate peace. Ger- 



many was exultant, but, as events proved, not 
so much as to be willing to grant the Russians 
any peculiar favors. 

The peace conference was called for Brest- 
Litovsk, a Russian town held by the enemy, 
in December, 1917. The Russian delegates 
were a peasant, a sailor, a soldier and a work- 
man. The Germans were trained diplomats. 
December 16th an armistice was declared — 
an act of the greatest advantage to Germany 
as it enabled her to send her soldiers from the 
Russian front to points where they could be 
more serviceable. The Russian — or rather 
Bolshevik — delegates endeavored to guard 
against this by stipulating that no troops 
should be sent to the western front, but this 
stipulation was systematically ignored by 
the Germans who straightway hurried the 
men released to the Italian and Argonne 
fronts. Moreover the armistice was utilized 
by them to spread still further the seeds of 
dissension within the Russian lines. Active 
hostilities being suspended the German prop- 
agandists mingled freely with the Russians 
and urged upon them the futility of further 
warfare, and the easy times all might have if 
they went home and took up work on the 
lands which the revolutionary government 
was preparing to distribute among them. 

In February, 1918, the Brest-Litovsk con- 
ference was still in session and none could 
foresee its outcome. As the discussion de- 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



253 



veloped it became apparent that the Ger- 
mans, notwithstanding the rule they had 
early laid down, "no annexations; no indem- 
nities" did not propose to surrender any of 
the Russian territory of which they were in 
occupation. Moreover, they were aggres- 
sively in favor of erecting out of Russian 
territory not merely new states like Poland 
and Finland to which Russia had already 
agreed, but others which should be nominally 
independent but actually subject to a Ger- 
man suzerainty and form a barrier between 
Germany and what would be left of Russia. 
Against these propositions the Bolshevists 
stood firm and for a time the outcome 
of the conference was debatable. The Ger- 
mans were eager for the separate peace, but 
whether to get it they would be willing to 
surrender any part of what they had won by 

the sword in Russia was doubtful. Nor is it 
certain that the advantages accruing to them 
from a separate peace would be what they 
have expected. They have calculated on 
getting back about 2,000,000 prisoners now 
held by the Russians. But these prisoners 
have passed into the Russian life. Few were 
Germans, most of them being taken from 
the Austrian armies, and being in fact Slavs 



who served under compulsion and bitterly 
hated the Dual Empire. The Russians have 
not as a rule imprisoned their captives but 
have set them to work on their farms, taking 
the places of Russian men at the front, and 
becoming Russianized themselves. Tens of 
thousands have enlisted in the Russian army. 
Many have married daughters of their cap- 
tors and have taken up land. It is unlikely 
that expatriates of this sort could be lured 
back to a country the government of which 
they detested to take up military service in 
its behalf once more. 

What may come to Russia of the apparent 
capture of its government by the Bolshevists 
it is too early to determine. Some see in it 
only a prolonged period of anarchy and chaos 
for Russia, closing with a reign of terror and 
the enthronement of a military despot. 
Others see in the Bolshevist leaders the pio- 
neers, uncouth, rough and intemperate, of 
a true democracy, a world-wide democracy 
which, not content with absorbing Russia, will 
spread to neighboring nations as well. What- 
ever the outcome may be, the present is no 
time to estimate unfavorably the part the 
Bolshevists may play in the democratic prog- 
ress of the world. 




A parade of women in Russia. Ever since the revolution displaced the old regime, street gatherings with various kinds of 

demands have been frequent sights in the principal cities 



r- 




American gunners aboard a merchant ship blazing away at a U-boat 



C H A P T E R X 

THE UNITED STATES AND THE WAR — THE LONG SUBMARINE CONTROVERSY — SINK- 
ING OF THE "LUSITANIA" — THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN ACTIVITY OF PACIFISTS — ■ 

GERMAN DIPLOMATIC INTRIGUES — DUMBA AND COUNT BERNSTORFF — GERMANY'S FINAL 
ULTIMATUM — VON BERNSTORFF DISMISSED — THE UNITED STATES DECLARES WAR 




^HE United States 
entered upon the 
war by formal act 
of Congress April 
6, 1917. Some or 
the reasons for the 
act then cited by 
the President for 
abandoning neu- 
trality were as ap- 
plicable, if not 
quite as evident, 
in August, 1914, 
after the German 
purposes and meth- 
ods had become 
evident. There 
were indeed some people, influential in stand- 
ing though few in numbers, who urged the 
entrance of this nation upon the war im- 
mediately upon the invasion of Belgium. 
Their numbers steadily increased as the hor- 
ror of the Belgian atrocities grew among our 
people, and after the murderous crime of the 
Lusitania they were multiplied a thousand- 
fold. When the President, after painfully 
guarding neutrality almost three years, 
finally sounded the call to arms, giving as the 
summary of his reasons that "the world 
must be made safe for democracy," the early 
advocates of war had their revenge. De- 
mocracy was never more menaced, they said, 
than in 1914 when Germany declared war on 
democratic France and violated a treaty to 
which it was a party in order to deal its vic- 
tim a foul blow below the belt. 

It would be idle, however, to contend that 
from the outset the sentiment of the Ameri- 
can people was for war. Precisely the con- 
trary was the case. Only a prolonged series 
of offenses on the part of Germany, so de- 
liberately and wantonly provocative as al- 
most to make it appear they were designed 
to invite war, finally reconciled the American 
people to entrance upon the struggle. The 



story of this campaign of provocation will 
be told in this chapter. 

We have seen that at the very opening of 
the war the German merchant fleet scurried 
for places of refuge from the overwhelming 
power of the British Navy. Within a very 
few weeks Germany was dependent wholly 
upon neutral vessels for supplies her people 
might need drawn from foreign countries. 
The first study of the Allies was naturally 
to cut down to the lowest limit by the recog- 
nized weapon of the blockade the quantity 
of these supplies that could reach their en- 
emy. German harbors were few and under 
conditions which had obtained in earlier 
wars would have been easily blockaded by 
the normal methods of blockade, established 
and recognized by international law. But a 
new weapon had appeared in this war which 
made the ancient rule of blockade impossible 
if the blockade were to be kept effective. 
The submarine, with its power of slipping 
up stealthily and unseen and delivering a 
deadly stroke, compelled the abandonment 
of the old custom by which blockaders lay 
off the mouth of a harbor blocking all passage. 
Such a watch could not have been maintained 
off Hamburg or Bremen for a week without 
heavy loss to the blockaders. Accordingly 
the British government declared a blockade 
which included waters hundreds of miles 
distant from the ports it was sought to close, 
and posted its blockading vessels along the 
lanes of commerce which vessels seeking 
those ports would necessarily follow, yet far 
enough from German waters to incur but 
slight danger from the submarines. This 
was procedure of but doubtful validity under 
international law as it was then codified and 
accepted — but before the war had proceeded 
very far international law had been as badly 
shot to pieces as the Cathedral at Rheims. 

There followed the wide extension of the 
list of contraband of war by Great Britain — 
that is to say a great increase in the number 

55 



>56 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



and variety of articles of commerce which 
were refused passage to Germany on the 
ground that they were really military sup- 
plies. Food, for example, had never been 
held contraband of war. But now Germany 
gave a plausible excuse, which England in- 
stantly seized, for so declaring it. In Janu- 
ary, 1916, the German government declared 
its purpose of seizing all stocks of corn, 
wheat and flour in the Empire, and forbade 
any private transactions in foodstuffs there- 
after. This the British held to constitute 
a government control of foodstuffs for the 
primary benefit of the army, thus making 
them contraband. The United States pro- 
tested strenuously, a test case having been 
made by the seizure of the United States 
ship Wilhelmina. The diplomatic debate 
dragged along interminably and inconclusive- 
ly until forgotten in the more serious issues 
that sprung from the German methods of 
reprisals. 

For the German government 
was maddened, and not with- 
out some justice, at the British 
amendments of the law of 
blockade. The practice of the 
blockade on the high seas, and 
the enormous extension of the 
contraband list were bitterly 
denounced. Germany, desti- 
tute of ships of her own, was 
forced to look on in helpless 
rage while fleets of Allied and 
neutral ships crossed and re- 
crossed the Atlantic, bringing 
to the Allied nations cannon, 
rifles, high explosives, shells, 
artillery horses and rr 
cloth for uniforms, boots 
for soldiers, all possible 
munitions of war and 
foodstuffs. Nothing 
could go to Germany 
except by evasion of 
the rigorous British 
watch. 

To check this 
commerce the Ger- 
mans had but one 
weapon — the sub- 
marine. But its 
successful employ- 
ment meant the 
complete repudia- 
tion of at least one 




ma 



■**& 




The telltale trail of a torpedo, marking a deadly aim when it 
hits its mark. This is the machine of destruction which the 
Germans are using in their ruthless submarine warfare 



vital principle of in- 
ternational law. 

The first step of 
the Kaiser's govern- 
ment was to pro- 
claim all the waters 
around the British 
Isles a "war zone" 
in which she pur- 
posed to destroy all 
enemy vessels 
"without its always 
being possible to 
warn the crew or 
passengers of the 
danger threaten- 
ing." Neutral ves- 
sels were warned to 
keep out of the zone 
lest in the fever of 
the campaign 
against belligerents 
they might fall vic- 
tims toGerman zeal. 

V\ ith this proc- 
lamation began the 
prolonged contro- 
versy between Ger- 
m a n y and the 
United States which 
finally dragged the 
latter most unwill- 
ingly into the war. 
Our government 
instantly made the 
protest that neutral 
ships must not be 
endangered by the 
creation arbitrarily 
of "war zones," and 
that even belliger- 
ent ships, and par- 
ticularlv Americans 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



257 



who happened to be on them either as pas- 
sengers or members of the crews, were en- 
titled to the protection of international law. 
That law has always distinctly provided that 
a suspected vessel shall not be destroyed 
until she has been visited, and her belligerent 
character or the contraband quality of her 
cargo established by due examination. Even 
then she may not be sunk until her passengers 
and crew have been placed in safety. Ger- 
many at one stroke of the pen obliterated 
these humane provisions which had been 
established in a century or more of interna- 
tional agreement. 

The immediate result of the war zone 
proclamation was the sinking of the Italian 
liner Falaba, with the loss of one American, 
and an attack on the American ship Gulf- 
light, by which her captain lost his life. Dip- 
lomatic protests followed each of these events, 
but the supreme issue was raised when the 
Cunard liner Lusitania was torpedoed with- 
out immediate warning and with the loss of 
1,198 lives of whom 114 were Americans. 
The patience of our people was strained to 
the breaking point. The German legation 
in Washington had arrogantly warned the 
travelling public by newspaper advertise- 
ment that those who sought to cross the war 
zone would do so at their own peril. After 
the crime had been committed the German 
Foreign Office pointed to this warning as a 
complete release from responsibility — much 
as though a gang of white caps should assure 
their victim that they had warned him in 
advance of what they intended to do. 

President Wilson's protest against this 
murderous act, dated May 13, 191 5, was a 
dignified restatement of the rights of neutrals 
on the high seas and a suitably vigorous de- 
nunciation of the German act, which he diplo- 
matically ascribed to a misapprehension of 
orders by the captain of the submarine. It 
may be noted in passing that that individual 
was decorated and promoted for his heroic 
act. The President's note concluded: 

"The Imperial German Government will 
not expect the government of the United 
States to omit any word or any act necessary 
to the performance of its sacred duty of 
maintaining the rights of the United States 
and its citizens and of safeguarding their 
free exercise and enjoyment." 

There followed a period of diplomatic 
correspondence, Germany evidently fighting 
for delay in the expectation that American 



resentment would die out. But it did not. 
It grew with every evasive German response, 
and every new toleration of delay on the part 
of our State Department evoked storms of 
criticism. Germany seemed to be riding for 
a fall. On the 19th of August, while the 
Lusitania discussion was at its height, the 
White Star liner Arabic was torpedoed with- 
out warning. No lives were lost but twenty- 
six Americans were exposed to the hardships 
of seeking safety in open boats. A swift 
protest was met by Germany with the half- 
way concession of giving orders that "liners 
will not be sunk by submarines without 
warning, and without ensuring the safety of 
the lives of noncombatants, provided that 




© Underwood & Underwood 
1 he destruction of an Allied steamer by a U-boat. This is 
Germany's method of cheering her populace 



258 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




The crew of H. M. S. Crumptrs, cheering H. M. submarine 
came out from the Dardanelles 

the liners do not try to escape or to offer re- 
sistance." This was of course unsatisfac- 
tory. It offered no protection to American 
sailors on freight vessels. It presumed that 
exposing passengers to the perils of the sea in 
small open boats was equivalent to securing 
their safety. Accordingly it was never ac- 
cepted by Secretary Robert Lansing, who 
had succeeded Mr. William J. Bryan as 
Secretary of State. But unsatisfactory as it 
was it was still too great a measure of human- 



same 




H. M. King George inspecting a submarine 



ity for the Germans to adhere 
to, and in less than three 
weeks the Allan liner Hesper- 
ian was torpedoed without 
warning. Among her crew 
were two Americans, though 
neither lost his life. 

The people of this nation 
were getting very weary of the 
German policy of promising 
reform while continuing its 
offensive course. And about 
this time there began to ap- 
pear a series of revelations 
concerning plots against our 
good order and interests by 
German agents — not uncon- 
nected with the diplomatic 
service — that added to the 
popular discontent. It was 
discovered that incendiary 
fires in ammunition plants, 
and strikes in works of the 
character were being fomented by 
German agents. Our State Department 
was being deceived with forged passports — 
a work in which attaches of the German 
embassy, Captain Boy-Ed and Captain 
von Papen, took an active part. The 
existence of a subsidized German propa- 
ganda was demonstrated. Papers emanat- 
ing from Dr. Dumba, the Austrian Ambas- 
sador, fell into the hands of the State Depart- 
ment, showing that functionary to be busily 
engaged in encouraging 
strikes in such great steel works 
as those at Bethlehem. As a 
result he was summarily sent 
home. An intercepted letter 
from Captain von Papen dis- 
closed that warrior of intrigue 
as advising "these idiotic 
Yankees to hold their tongues." 
It was daily made more clear 
that the embassy which Ger- 
many maintained here in a 
nominal spirit of friendliness 
was in fact a nest of conspir- 
acy against our industries and 
our internal peace, and that 
the spirit which animated its 
officials from Ambassador von 
Bernstorff down was one of 
cynical contempt for the 
United States and resent- 
ment for the part she was 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



259 



A British suhni.iii 

for England 



playing in the war. After rela- 
tions were broken off it was 
discovered that German diplo- 
macy was actually trying to 
embroil us in war with Mexico 
and Japan. 

Much of the German in- 
trigue was directed against the 
enormous business in muni- 
tions of war for the Allies which 
had sprung up in the United 
States. Although German 
public men privately admitted 
the entire legality of this trade 
they bitterly denounced it in 
public as a gross violation of 
neutrality. It is a fact, un- 
pleasant to consider in the 
light of later events, that at 
this period the manufacturers 
of the United States would 
quite as readily have made 
munitions for Germany as 
and France. The only difficulty was that 
Germany had no means of getting the 
finished product to her armies. So being 
unable to profit herself by the trade she 
denounced it bitterly as unneutral and bar- 
barous. American business men were de- 
picted as turning the wounds and blood 
of German soldiers into tainted money, and 
every effort was made to stir up German- 
Americans to open and to stealthy attacks 
on the business. Congress was beseeched to 
lay an embargo on the export 
of arms, and when that ex- 
pedient failed, the coarser de- 
vices of blowing up the plants 
and fomenting strikes were 
applied. 

Notwithstanding German 
aggressions on the high seas 
and German plots and in- 
trigues in the Embassy, the 
war party in the United States 
grew but slowly. For a time 
there seemed vastly more 
danger of war with Mexico 
than with Germany. This 
nation is essentially peaceful, 
and it was at the moment 
under an administration earn- 
estly devoted to peace. The 
President, it will be remem- 
bered, was reelected in 1916 
after a campaign in which the 







Vl-lli 



in a heavy sea, 



looking alt from the 



loudest slogan was "He kept us out of war." 
His first Secretary of State, Mr. William Jen- 
nings Bryan, who had thrice been an unsuc- 
cessful candidate for the Presidency, was a 
pronounced pacifist and resigned his office be- 
cause he thought the President's note on the 
Lusitania sinking too bellicose. The Secretary 
of the Navy, Mr. Josephus Daniels, was a 
gentleman whose first thought of the Navy 
was as an institution for the education of 
American youth, rather than as a fighting ma- 
chine, though later in his career he won de- 




A wrecked German submarine high and dry nn the sands 



260 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




The crew ol .i German U-boat surrendering to an 

served approval by the high degree of effici- 
ency manifested in his office. The Secretary of 
War, Mr. Newton D. Baker, had been a pro- 
nounced pacifist all his life and confessed to 
an aversion to the trappings of war. All the 
influence of the administration was exerted 
for the suppression of the war spirit, and the 
President not only besought the people to be 
neutral even in thought, but assured them 
that the United States should be too proud 
to fight. 

Everywhere throughout the land pacifist 
societies sprung up, usually suspiciously well 
supplied with funds from unascertainable 
sources, and not infrequently provided with 
executive officers with suggestively German 
names. The German language press, which 
was moribund at the beginning of the war, 
took on a new prosperity, and in the majority 
of instances was strenuously pro-German in 
all issues which involved a clash between the 
United States and the government of the 
Kaiser. The undoubted evidences of over- 
whelming pacifist sentiment in the United 
States, and the apparent indications — illusory 
as it later proved — of widespread disloyalty 
among German-Americans seemingly en- 



couraged the Ger- 
man government to 
renewed aggressions. 
Long afterward 
when relations be- 
tween the two gov- 
ernments had almost 
reached the snap- 
ping point the 
Kaiser's Minister of 
Foreign Affairs truc- 
ulently reminded 
Ambassador Gerard 
that there were 500,- 
000 German reserv- 
ists in the United 
States. 

"And we have 
501,000 lamp posts 
for their accom- 
modation, Your 
Excellency," was 
the ambassador's 
apt and instant 
retort. 

Meanwhile Ger- 
many proceeded 
steadily with her 
submarine campaign 
of" ruthlessness." The sinking of the Lusitania 
had never been disavowed. No adequate 
promise to adhere to the principles upheld by 
all civilized nations had yet been made by Ger- 
many, and even the grudging agreement not 
to sink without warning regular liners was 
frequently violated — notably by the sinking 
of the Dutch liners Tubantia and Palembang. 
In March, 1916, the Channel steamer Sussex 
was torpedoed and sunk with great loss of 
life, many American citizens being among 
the victims. Germany was still evasive, 
sometimes arrogant. But the Sussex inci- 
dent served to bring matters sharply to an 
issue, for on April 19th, in a message to Con- 
gress, President Wilson declared that 

"Unless the Imperial German Govern- 
ment should now immediately declare and 
effect an abandonment of its present meth- 
ods of warfare against passenger and freight 
vessels, the Government can have no choice 
but to sever diplomatic relations with the 
Government of the German Empire alto- 
gether." 

This was very much in the nature of an 
ultimatum. True, to sever diplomatic rela- 



© Committee on Public Information 
American destroyer 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



261 



tions is not tantamount to a declaration of 
war, but in troublous times it is almost in- 
variably followed by such a declaration. 
The German Government evidently recog- 
nized the gravity of the situation for it re- 
sponded with the declaration that the Ger- 
man navy would at once 

"receive the following orders for submarine 
warfare in accordance with the general prin- 
ciple of visit, search and destruction of mer- 
chant vessels recognized by international 
law. Such vessels, both within and without 
the area declared as a naval war-zone, shall 
not be sunk without warning, and without 
saving human life, unless the ship attempt 
to escape and offer resistance." 

But in connection with this belated agree- 
ment to recognize the rules of civilized na- 
tions the Germans advanced the proposition 
that in return for it the President should en- 
deavor to lead the British to mitigate in 
some way the strictness of her blockade. 
The point was clearly foreign to the matter 
at issue. Because Germany was at last 
willing to obey international law was no 
reason why the United States should attempt 
to coerce Great 
Britain on any point. 
This the President 
pointed out in his 
response to Ger- 
many, but it was 
made evident nearly 
a year later, when 
Germany utterly 
and flagrantly repu- 
diated her promise, 
why the conditional 
clause had been so 
shrewdly attached 
to it. 

For a time the 
submarine warfare 
languished. Dis- 
cussion of it in the 
United States was 
subordinated to the 
issues of the pres- 
idential campaign in 
which President 
Wilson was a can- 
didate for reelection 
and was opposed bv 
Mr. Charles E. 

Hughes, who re- This is the type of submari 



signed from the United States Supreme 
Court to make the race. Both parties pro- 
fessed themselves sturdily American, both 
angrily denied the charge of truckling to the 
German-American vote, though each was in 
fact stealthily angling for it, and both were 
noisily for a greater measure of military and 
naval preparedness — though the Democrats 
after four years in power could point to noth- 
ing accomplished in that direction. But 
the Democrats adopted for their slogan, 
"He kept us out of war!" and though the 
election was actually determined by factional 
dissensions in the Republican party, this cam- 
paign cry was a tremendous force with an 
electorate which undoubtedly desired peace. 

One month and one day after President 
Wilson's second inauguration he set his signa- 
ture to the proclamation declaring war upon 
Germany. 

Never was there a more extraordinary in- 
stance of the inability of politicians to direct 
the operations of great international forces. 
The implied promise of the President and his 
advisers in the political campaign that be- 
cause he had kept us out of war he would 
continue to do so, was taken even more Sen- 




se) International Film Service 
ne used by the Germans for strewing the seas with mines 



262 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



263. 



ously in Germany than here. 
His election was regarded as 
assurance that the United 
States might indeed maintain 
its attitude of benevolent 
neutrality toward the Allies, 
but however great the prov- 
ocation would never go to the 
extent of declaring war upon 
Germany. 

Only on this theory can the 
acts of the Kaiser's govern- 
ment following our presi- 
dential election of 1917 be ex- 
plained — unless we adopt the 
extravagant supposition that 
the Germans actually desired 
war with the United States. 
For the year 1917 had scarce- 
ly opened when German sub- 
marine activity began again 
with renewed vigor. In a month 96 vessels, 
many of them neutral, had been sunk in 
the war zone. Not only passenger ships 
were regarded as fair game, but even hospital 
ships were made victims of the German 
torpedoes — two of these the Britannic and 
the Braemar Castle having been sunk in the 
ZEgean Sea. Looking forward some time 
from this date it is pertinent to note here 
that in February, 1918, Mr. Bonar Law, gov- 
ernment leader in the House of Commons, 
stated officially that up to that date 14,120 
noncombatant British men, 
women and children had been 
done to death by German sub- 
marines. 

But notwithstanding the 
grave possibdities of serious 
trouble with the United States 
which the unrestricted use of 
the submarines involved, the 
Germans were infatuated with 
that weapon. Von Tirpitz, 
head of the German navy, and 
one of the most powerful men 
in the Empire, had long been 
assuring the people that if al- 
lowed to use the undersea boats 
as he chose he would bring 
England to her knees. "Let 
us sink as we will and where we 
will all ships bound for the 
British Isles," he said in effect 
in repeated speeches and in- 
terviews, "and we will starve 




This photograph shows the cross suction of the German mine-laying U. C. 5, cap- 
tured bv the British in the English Channel 



England into subjection within three months. 
If we operate without restrictions we can sink 
one million tons a month, and so reduce the 
volume of shipping that England cannot pos- 
sibly be fed. We are handicapped now by un- 
manly concessions to American sentiment — 
which is pro-British anyway. Our brave 
submarine commanders are fettered and 
hampered by these regulations. Free them 
and we will have England suing for peace 
before spring." 

This policy was not accepted by the Ger- 




An anti-aircraft battery on a British monitor blocked off with a sand-bag barri- 
cade from the rest of the ship 



264 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



n 




A thrilling panorama of rescue from a sinking ship by a French gunboat. The black object to the left is a raft, on which some 
survivors held themselves until the arrival of the French gunboat seen on the horizon 



man authorities except after prolonged dis- 
cussion, and a hard fought political contest. 
But in the end Von Tirpitz prevailed and the 
campaign of ruthlessness was ordered. It 
was announced to the world in a memoran- 
dum, presented by Ambassador von Bern- 
storff January 31, 1917, in which it was de- 
clared that after February 1 — the very next 
day — all sea traffic would be stopped in the 
already defined war zones and that neutral 
ships would suffer equally with those of bellig- 
erents. 




Convoy of ships en route to foreign waters. This is all the 
U. S. censor will allow us to say 



This was, of course, the complete repudia- 
tion by Germany of all its promises solemnly 
made to meet the protests of the United 
States on submarine outrages. It was a 
wanton and insolent flouting of the United 
States, its power and its standing among 
nations. And to make the proclamation the 
more insulting the Kaiser condescended to 
offer the United States permission to send 
one ship a week to England, provided it sail 
for the little-frequented port of Falmouth, 
be painted with grotesque stripes like the 
zebra, and fly, not the flag of the nation, but 
one designed by Germany. Perhaps nothing 
in all the grave and serious complications 
with Germany so roused the wrath of Ameri- 
cans as this. A cartoon in Punch fitly ex- 
pressed their feeling. With oily unction the 
Kaiser is saying to Uncle Sam: "You may 
sail once a week to Falmouth." To which 
the latter, hands in pockets, hat and cigar at 
a menacing angle, retorts, "And you may go 
all the time to hell!" 

Within twenty-four hours von Bernstorff 
had been sent his passports. "The President 
could have done nothing less," the diplomat 
remarked with cynical philosophy to a crowd 
of newspaper men who saw him off. The 
Count knew better than his auditors what 
he had been doing in secret. When certain 
facts began to leak out a few days later it 
became evident enough why his dismissal 
had not more greatly surprised him. 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



265 




German merchant submarine Deutschland lying in Chesapeake Bay before returning across the Atlantic. In spite of the 
vigilance of English patrols the Deutschland has made two trips to the United States, landing once at Baltimore and once at 
New London 



It may be noted at this point that nothing 
but courtesy attended the departure of the 
German ambassador. Great Britain and 
France at once accorded safe conduct across 
the ocean for him and his staff. The prin- 
cipal consular officers in the United States 
and many prominent men of German affilia- 
tions accompanied him. Very different was 
the treatment accorded our Ambassador, 
James W. Gerard, in Berlin. Instantly upon 
news of the break his telephone was cut out 
by the government. He was not allowed 
to communicate with the United States con- 
suls in Germany, or with his home govern- 
ment in cipher. His mail was held up. 
Preparation of his passports was suspiciously 
delayed for days. An attempt was made 
to coerce him after his recall and when he 
had no longer any status as an Ambassador, 
to reaffirm an old treaty which Germany 
thought might be revived to its advantage. 
The attitude of the German Government was 
one of childish petulance. Irritated by the 
break with the United States, which had not 
been anticipated, the authorities took every 
method to work off their pique upon the only 
American official who was at their mercy. 

In his address informing Congress of his 
action, President Wilson said after recount- 
ing the circumstances leading to his act: 

Notwithstanding this unexpected action of the Ger- 
man Government, this sudden and deplorable renuncia- 



tion of its assurances, given this Government at one 
of the most critical moments of tension in the relations 
of the two Governments, I refuse to believe that it is 
the intention of the German authorities to do in fact 
what they have warned us they will feel at liberty to do. 
I cannot bring myself to believe that they will indeed 
pay no regard to the ancient friendship' between- their 
people and our own or to the solemn obligations which 
have been exchanged between them, and destroy Ameri- 
can ships and /|\ take the lives of American 
citizens in the / willful prosecution of the 




Submarine chasers on a trial run. Every boat is thorough- 
ly tested before it is delivered so that in an emergency its 
speed will not fall below that of its submarine prey 



266 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



267 



ruthless naval program they have announced their 
intention to adopt. Only actual overt acts on their 
part can make me believe it even now. 

If this inveterate confidence on my part in the so- 
briety and prudent foresight of their purpose should un- 
happily prove unfounded; if American ships and Ameri- 
can lives should in fact be sacrificed by their naval com- 
manders in heedless contravention of the just and rea- 
sonable understandings of international law and the 
obvious dictates of humanity, I shall take the liberty 
of coming again before the Congress to ask that author- 
ity be given me to use any means that may be necessary 



was sunk, and sinkings followed fast there- 
after. Meantime American ships were held 
in our harbors by the German threat. The 
situation was far from creditable to our gov- 
ernment which acquiesced in the suspension 
of sailings by our mail ships so that for a 
considerable period we should have had no 
communication with Europe save for English 
and French vessels. Many American mer- 
chant captains did, to the eternal glory of 
their service, flout the German menace and 




© Underwood & Underw-od 
This remarkable photograph shows a British transport which with troops on boarJ was torpedoed by an enemy submarine in 

the Eastern Mediterranean 



for the protection of our seamen and our people in the 
prosecution of their peaceful and legitimate errands on 
the high seas. I can do nothing less. I take it for 
granted that all neutral Governments will take the 
same course. 

The President's "inveterate confidence" 
was no better founded this time than it had 
been during the long controversy over the 
submarine campaign. Prior to the day on 
which Von Bernstorff received his papers 
more than 200 Americans had lost their lives 
at sea by the acts of this nation with which 
we were at peace. Nor was there the slight- 
est cessation in this murderous activity after 
the rebuke to the German envoy. On the 
day of his dismissal another American ship 



carry their ships abroad without decking 
them in stripes or flying a flag of German 
design. But so far as the liners and mail 
ships which deferred to government direc- 
tions were concerned, the flourish of the 
Kaiser's mailed fist locked them in port like 
school boys suffering the teacher's dis- 
pleasure. 

The hesitation of the Administration to 
permit the mail steamships to sail was further 
illustration of the extreme anxiety of the 
government to avoid war. The dignified 
and patriotic action would have been to 
dispatch them each one convoyed by a ship 
of the United States navy. But in such 
event an attack would have been equivalent 



268 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




(c) Underwood & Underwood 
With part of our fleet in foreign waters ready for instant action 

to an immediate declaration of war. The 
alternative was to arm the merchant ships 
for self-defense. Authority to do this was 
asked by the steamship companies. But 
the President hesitated. That he was vested 
with the power to grant the permission no 
one questioned, but for some reason he desired 
specific authority from Congress. Accord- 
ingly he applied for that authorization, but 
to the lasting discredit of the Senate certain 
pacifist members took advantage of the fact 
that adjournment on March 4th was com- 
pulsory, and "talked the measure to death" 
as the Congressional phrase has it. The in- 
cident, which was of course quickly remedied 
in the new session, is instructive as illustrat- 
ing the power of the pacifist forces even at a 
time only preceding the actual declaration 
of war by about a month. 

While at the moment of Von BernstorfFs 
dismissal the feeling had become general in 
the United States that war would follow, it 
was conceded that some new overt acts by 
Germany would be necessary to compel it. 
They came fast enough. March 14th the 
American steamship Algonquin was tor- 
pedoed without warning. Though no lives 



were lost the crew 
were exposed in open 
boats for twenty- 
seven hours. March 
19th brought news 
of the sinking of three 
more American ships, 
the City of Memphis, 
the Illinois and the 
Vigilancia. Fifteen 
members of the lat- 
ter's crew were lost. 
Congress had been 
called in spe- 
cial session 
for April 
1 6th, but these of- 
fenses caused the 
President to advance 
the date of the ses- 
sion to April 2nd. 
Thecallspecified that 
the purpose of the 
session was "to re- 
ceive a communica- 
tion by the Execu- 
tive on grave ques- 
tions of national 
policy which should 
be immediately taken under consideration." 
It might have been thought that the grav- 
ity of the situation was such that Germany 
would refrain, for a time at least, from acts 
likely to cause new ill-feeling. But not so. 
March 22 an American steamship was sunk 
without warning in the North Sea, and seven 
of her crew were lost. 

The nation by this time was fairly roused 
to the occasion. Patriotic meetings were 
held in all the cities, and men without regard 
to party pledged their support to the Admin- 
istration in the impending crisis. But the 
pacifists were correspondingly active. At 
Madison Square Garden, New York, a 
gathering of citizens that packed the huge 
hall and called upon the President in no un- 
certain tones to declare war upon Germany, 
was followed within the week by a meeting 
of pacifists, of no smaller proportions, which 
stoutly opposed war and vehemently called 
upon the President to submit the issue to a 
referendum of all the voters of the United 
States before making the final declaration. 

In the vigor and noise of their agitation 
the pacifists seemed superficially to be the 
dominant faction. Indeed comparatively few 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



269 



wanted war — the nation was about to accept 
it as a most abhorrent necessity violently 
thrust upon the United States by German 
aggressions. If the referendum had been 
ordered and the question asked had been 
"Do we want war?" it would probably have 
been answered by an overwhelming vote of 
"No!" But the question was in fact, 
" Must we fight to protect our national honor, 
our national integrity, our national safety?" 
and to this the one answer, though given in 
sorrow, was "Yes!' 



of Representatives, where the joint session of 
the members of House and Senate was being 
held. But no demonstration worthy of the 
name marred the dignified and solemn proce- 
dure by which the United States, for the first 
time in its history, was enrolled among the 
belligerents in a general European war. 

The Congress met at noon on April 2nd. 
After organization, and a few polite tributes 
to the first woman ever seated in the House 
of Representatives as a member, the House 
adjourned until night. When it reassembled 



Washington was in a turmoil as the day of it presented a dignified and historic spectacle. 



the extra session, April 2, 1917, approached. 
From all over the land the pacifists had an- 
nounced their intent of proceeding to the 
capital to present, as a phrase had it, "a peti- 
tion in boots," against the entrance of the 
United States upon the war. Aroused by 
this threat the advocates of resistance to 
Germany announced their purpose of like- 
wise being present to offset the pacifist dem- 
onstration. Both elements were pouring into 
the city by the thousands when the police 
authorities, very wisely apprehending some 
violent clash, prohibited all parades or open 
air mass meetings. 
As a result the demon- 
strations were not 
impressive. During 
the day the streets 
were crowded with 
men and women, dis- 
tinguished by the 
white sash which had 
been adopted as the 
mark of pacifism — 
and unpleasantly sug- 
gestive of the white 
feather. But they 
had no rallying point, 
no concerted plan, 
and drifted about 
little distinguishable 
from the throngs of 
tourists who always 
flock to that city. At 
night they crowded 
Capitol Park, where 
troops for the first 
time in fifty-five years 
guarded the historic 
edifice which houses 
Congress. Many se- 
cured access to the 
galleries of the House 



Directly before the Speaker's stand sat the 
members of the Supreme Court. The dip- 
lomatic gallery to one side was crowded with 
diplomats in uniform or evening dress — the 
representatives of Germany and Austria 
being conspicuous by their absence. The 
galleries were crowded with privileged spec- 
tators each one of whom displayed an Ameri- 
can flag or the white badge of pacifism. At 
half past eight the doors opened and the 
Senate marched in, headed by the Vice- 
President. Again the American flag was much 
in evidence, though one or two irreconcilable 




A fleet of submarine chasers to guard our coast. These boats are 80 feet long, mount light 
rapid-fire guns, have a speed of 18 to 20 miles an hour, and are manned by members ot the 
Naval Reserve and Naval Militia. 



270 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



pacifists among the senators tailed to dis- 
play it. 

When the President entered and mounting 
the rostrum with quick nervous steps was 
presented to the joint session, the tumult 
was unbounded. All were instantly on their 
feet — pacifists with the rest — cheering and 



war determined upon as wars used to be determined 
upon in the old, unhappy days, when peoples were 
nowhere consulted by their rulers and wars were 
provoked and waged in the interest of dynasties 
or of little groups of ambitious men who were ac- 
customed to use their fellow-men as pawns and tools. 
Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbor 
States with spies or set the course of intrigue to bring 




One of the many shipbuilding concerns turning out submarine chasers. Every boat in the picture is in the same stage of 
completion. Standardization of parts and division of labor have systematized the production of these boats 



waving their national emblems. Grave jus- 
tices of the Supreme Court shouted like boys 
at a baseball game, as the President stood 
impassively waiting for quiet that he might 
begin his address. It was not long for so 
historic a document. Some of its telling 
points may well be reprinted here: 

We have no quarrel with the German people. We 
have no feeling towatd them but one of sympathy and 
friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their 
Government acted in entering this war. It was not 
with their previous knowledge or approval. It was a 



about some critical posture of affairs which will give 
them an opportunity to strike and make conquest. 
Such designs can be successfully worked out only under 
cover and where no one has the right to ask questions. 
Cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression, 
carried, it may be, from generation to generation, can 
be worked out and kept from the light only within the 
privacy of courts or behind the carefully guarded con- 
fidences of a narrow and privileged class. They are 
happily impossible where public opinion commands 
and insists upon full information concerning all the 
nation's affairs. 

A steadfast concert for peace can never be main- 




CUATEMALA 



Government: 
President: 
Area: 

Population: 

Date of severing relations: 
Army: 
Navy: 
Revenue: 
Expenditure: 

Commerce with Germany 
before the war: 

Greatest exports: 
Reason for breaking rela- 
tions: 



Republic 

Manuel Estrada Cabrera 

48,290 square miles 

2.119,000 

April 28. 1917 

125.000 

None 

$66,200,000 

$63,095,000 

Exports, $7,653,557; im- 
ports. $2,043,329 
Coffee, bananas 

Germany gave no guaran- 
tees of safety for shipping 



COSTA RICA 



Government: 
President: 
Area: 

Population 

Date of severing relations: 
Army: 
Navy: 

Commerce with Germany 
before the war: 

Greatest exports: 
Reason for severing rela- 
tions: 



Republic 

J. J. Tinoco 

J 8,691 square miles 

420.000 

September 21, 1917 

52.000 

Nonr* 

Exports, $460,000: imports, 

$1,510,000 
Bananas and coffee 

To support the United 
States in her declaration 
of war against Germany. 
Placed all material re- 
sources in hands of the 
United States for a more 
complete cooperation 
against Germany 



ARGENTINE REPUBLIC 



Government: 

President: 

Area: 

Population: 

Army: 

Navy: 



Commerce with 
(1915): 



Germany 



Greatest exports: 
Reason for severing rela- 
tions: 



Republic 

Hipolito Irigoyen 

1,153,119 square miles 

8,000,000 

500,000 

2 dreadnoughts, 2 pre- 

dreadnoughts, 6 cruisers, 

11 destroyers 

Exports, none; imports, 

$11,306,620 
Live stock, agriculture 

Although the Senate and 
Chamber of Deputies 
voted to break relations 
with Germany after the 
disclosure of Germany's 
duplicity in the Swedish 
Embassy in Buenos Aires 
the President has not yet 
ratified the break 





HAITI 



Government: 
President: 
Area: 

Population: 

Date of severing relations: 
Army: 
Navy: 

Commerce with Germany 
before the war: 

Greatest exports! 
Reason for severing rela-* 
tions: 



Republic 

Sudre Dartiguenave 

10,204 square miles 

2,500,000 

June 19, 1917 

5,000 

1 cruiser 

Exports, none; import?, 

$338,004 
Coffee, cocoa, sugar 

Her demands for safety on 
the seas were ignored 

The majority of the pop- 
ulation of Haiti are 
negroes. French is the 
universal language. Haiti 
is at present under the 
protection of United 
States Marines 




.*.„- 



-,,-.. 



272 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




; Amcriun I'rrv. Awniatt 
Lieut. Bruce Richardson, who was in charge of the gun crew on the Mongolia, reported to have sunk a German U-boat 



tained except by a partnership of democratic nations. 
No autocratic Government could be trusted to keep 
faith within it or observe its covenants. It must be a 
league of honor, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue 
would eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles 
who could plan what they would and render account 
to no one would be a corruption seated at its very 
heart. Only free peoples can hold their purpose and 
their honor steady to a common end, and prefer the 
interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own. 

The world must be made safe for democracy. Its 
peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of 
political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. 
We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no in- 
demnities for ourselves, no material compensation for 
the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of 
the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be 
satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as 
the faith and the freedom of nations can make them. 

Just because we fight without rancor and without 
selfish object, seeking nothing for ourselves but what 
we shall wish to share with all free peoples, we shall, I 
feel confident, conduct our operations as belligerents 
without passion and ourselves observe with proud 
punctilio the principles of right and of fair play we 
profess to be fighting for. 

It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of 
the Congress, which I have performed in thus address- 
ing you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery 
trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to 
lead this great, peaceful people into war, into the most 



terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself 
seeming to be in the balance. 

But the right is more precious than peace, and we 
shall fight for the things which we have always carried 
nearest our hearts — for democracy, for the right of 
those who submit to authority to have a voice in their 
own Governments, for the rights and liberties of small 
nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a con- 
cert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all 
nations and make the world itself at last free. 

To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our for- 
tunes, everything that we are and everything that we 
have, with the pride of those who know that the day 
has come when America is privileged to spend her blood 
and her might for the principles that gave her birth 
and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. 

God helping her, she can do no other. 

Amid renewed cheering the President left 
the Hall and was swiftly driven back to the 
White House. To all intents and purposes 
the nation was from that moment at war. 
At war for the first time since 1812 with a 
formidable foreign foe. Yet to observers, 
not alone in Washington but in other great 
cities of the land, the amazing feature of the 
crisis was the total lack of excitement, indeed 
of enthusiasm. There were no cheering 
mobs flaunting flags and parading the streets. 
There were no mob assaults upon the most 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



273 



outspoken of Germans. New York and 
eastern cities did indeed break out with a 
severe rash of patriotic bunting, but from 
this western towns were largely exempt. 
There were no street mass meetings. The 
seeker for excitement and dramatic detail 
was in the position of Captain Robley D. 
Evans, when he looked up in the midst of 
the Battle of Santiago to find his ship desti- 
tute of a battle flag. "What the devil's the 
use of a battle without a battle flag?" cried 
"Fighting Bob" disgustedly and soon had 
two flying. But the United States has not 
yet got its excitement. It only slowly 
roused to the point of noisy enthusiasm. 
But determination and the will to win were 
growing every day. 

Congress was not slow in granting all the 
President had asked. The Joint Resolutions 
declaring a state of war to exist was passed by 
the Senate April 4th and by the House 
April 5th. There was debate of course and 
an acrimonious one. Six senators voted 
against war. In the House the vote for it was 
unanimous save for the single ballot of a 



socialist representative who felt forced to 
vote according to the international tenets of 
his party. The resolutions as passed, April 
6th, are as follows: 

Whereas, The Imperial German Government has 
committed repeated acts of war against the Govern- 
ment and the people of the United States of America; 
therefore, be it 

Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representa- 
tives of the United States of America in Congress as- 
sembled, That the state of war between the United 
States and the Imperial German Government, which 
has thus been thrust upon the United States, is hereby 
formally declared; and 

That the President be, and he is hereby, authorized 
and directed to employ the entire naval and military 
forces of the United States and the resources of the 
Government to carry on war against the Imperial Ger- 
man Government; and to bring the conflict to a success- 
ful termination all the resources of the country are here- 
by pledged by the Congress of the United States. 

The same day the President issued his 
proclamation to all the world and the United 
States was at war. 




© C Miller, Jr. 
Sailors of our Navy learn the ins and outs of mine-laying. Mine-laying becomes a real science when the work is properly done 



CHAPTER XI 



MILITARY AND NAVAL WEAKNESS OF THE UNITED STATES — OUR FINANCIAL 
STRENGTH — SHIPS AND AIRCRAFT — THE GOVERNMENT TAKES THE RAILROADS — 
FOOD REGULATIONS — THE CALL TO ARMS — SUCCESS OF CONSCRIPTION — METHOD 
OF THE DRAFT — RAPID INCREASE OF ARMY AND NAVY — OUR MEN ABROAD 




NCE embroiled in 
the most savage 
war history has 
ever recorded the 
United States had 
to grapple with 
problems such as 
had never before 
presented them- 
selves during its 
national exist- 
ence. 

The army 
judged by Euro- 
pean standards 
and by the tasks which it would presently 
have to discharge was a mere pigmy. The 
Germans, learning nothing from their experi- 
ence with Sir John French's little army, did 
not hesitate to scoff at this one too as con- 
temptible — an opinion which they learned 
to revise. 

The navy, though third and possibly even 
second at the outbreak of the war, was a 
peace navy requiring complete remodelling 
and the filhng-in of many important vacan- 
cies in ships before it could be termed at all 
an adequate seafighting force. 

We were most inadequately supplied with 
munitions of war. Even for the small army 
of peace the supply of field artillery and 
machine guns was ridiculously insufficient. 
For nearly three years our factories had 
been turning out cannon, shells, rifles, ma- 
chine guns and high explosives on a scale 
never before attempted, but all of this supply 
went to purchasers abroad. Our military 
authorities looked on without effort to 
divert any share of it into our own arsenals. 
It was reported that within a few days of 
the declaration of war an agent of an arms 
house went to a War Department official 
with a proposition concerning a machine 
gun only to be coldly repulsed with the re- 

2 



mark that the Department was not interested 
in machine guns. In a few months our 
soldiers were falling before them — in the 
hands of the enemy. 

We had to grapple with financial problems 
on a scale hitherto undreamed of. But 
though the country suddenly substituted 
billions for millions in its vocabulary this 
has as yet been the least of our problems. 
The nation is rich. Its credit is the highest. 
Its people are prosperous. The financial 
obligations of the war we have met and shall 
continue to meet without undue apprehen- 
sion. 

But the obligation imposed upon us to 
meet the need of our allies for munitions and 
food has been thus far the most onerous of 
all. It has created a scarcity in our own land 
without fully allaying the distress in theirs. 
Early in 1918 we seemed to have failed 
utterly in this task, without the proper dis- 
charge of which the war can by no means be 
won. But the reserve forces of the nation 
came to the rescue and the crisis was bravely 
met. We were late in exercising our fullest 
power, but the power was there and in time 
was fully employed. 

It would be idle to recount here the dis- 
heartening details of the delays that attended 
our equipment for war. Curiously enough 
we were strongest where we had apprehended 
weakness, and weak where we had thought 
ourselves strong. We had feared trouble 
in raising an army, but volunteering and 
the absolutely orderly progress of the draft 
supplied the nation with troops faster than 
it could equip them. We had boasted of 
our industrial efficiency, and with apparent 
reason, for ourwhole great manufacturing and 
transportation systems had been the admi- 
ration of the world. But now, confronted 
with the exigencies of war, that whole sys- 
tem broke down. 

At the outbreak of war it was conceded 



75 



276 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



277 



on all sides that the greatest contribution 
the United States could make to the Allied 
cause was a monster fleet of merchant ships, 
wherewith to offset the depredations of 
German submarines, carry foodstuffs to our 
allies and transport our troops to the 
European battlefields and maintain 
them there. Six million tons a year 
was estimated as the amount neces- 
sary, and enormous appropriations 
were made, and a Shipping Board 
created to rush the work. At the 
end of ten months of war not one 
ship of this new construction had 
been launched. 

Again it was universally conceded 
that the United States could materi- 
ally aid in winning the war by build- 
ing aircraft in enormous numbers. 
Congressional debates and newspapers 
were full of assurances of the way in 
which we would "blind the Kaiser's 
armies" by such an overwhelming 
fleet of our own airplanes that no 
German machines would be able to 
keep the air or spy out our lines. 
There seemed every reason why we 
should succeed in this purpose. The 
airplane was an American invention. 
A dozen factories were even then 
making them for foreign governments. 
Congress at once made a lump appro- 
priation of $640,000,000 for aeronau- 
tical purposes, and the appropriations 
for air service in the Army and Navy 
supply bills raised the total to nearly 
a billion dollars. But the United 
States had been at war ten months 
before the first airplane of the prom- 
ised fleet was completed. 

These were but samples of inci- 
dents in the long record of discourage- 
ments that seemed to culminate in 
the early months of 1918. To cap 
the climax the weather itself seemed 
to be operated in the interest of the Kaiser. 
A winter of almost unprecedented severity 
further blocked the roads, which were already 
congested by unexampled shipments of 
freight to the seaboard. The demand for 
coal was seemingly illimitable; the capacity 
of the railroads to deliver it was crippled as 
never in their history. In zero weather 
cities shivered, and the poor suffered cruelly 
for the lack of fuel. Hundreds of ships 
heavy laden with necessities for the hungry 



people of our allies lay helpless in American 
ports with empty bunkers. Great factories 
engaged in manufacturing munitions and 
other supplies vital to our armies were shut 
down for lack of power. 



Strij-fiftji (longrrss of tbc (Unite!) %t.itcs of America; 

JU the iuvst Session, 



mil ln-1.1 at the City . I Washtnel Hoiwln; ! " 

UIK ttHi.i- ' 



JOINT RESOLUTION 

Di'riuring ilnt 1 stale ol ■ I'tui the Impt.1 Gemuin G. 

ami ill.' Gov. il 1 i Lhv 1 1 t State an 

piuYibiun i" pwstriitc Ira - ,. 



II, ..!,. 11. „ il,. 



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uicnt <■< !>'■ Unilal SI '• ■ 

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© Harris & Ewing 
Photographic reproduction of America's declaration that a 
state of war exists. Approved and signed April 6. 1917 

To meet this situation the government 
adopted heroic methods the measure of suc- 
cess of which cannot at this moment be esti- 
mated. The railroads, which had failed 
not onlv to distribute coal, but which were 
impotent to handle their other traffic — hay- 
ing for example in February lost in their 
crowded yards 9,000 cars of steel vitally need- 
ed in the ship yards — were taken over by 
the government. It was a striking illustra- 
tion of the calm determination of the Ameri- 



278 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



can people to do everything and dare every- 
thing needful for the successful prosecution 
of this war that this step, which at other 
times would have been denounced as revo- 
lutionary, was accepted as necessary by the 
people and railroad officials alike. It is true 
that the seizure was declared to be temporary 
onlv, and bills fixing the period at which the 
roads were to be returned to their original 
owners were introduced in Congress. But 
the immediate essay in government owner- 
ship was made without a serious protest. 



the American people might have the more 
to give, the food conservation board, headed 
by Mr. Herbert C. Hoover, whose success 
in feeding stricken Belgium had been so 
notable, adopted every method for encourag- 
ing and enforcing economy in the use of food. 
Meatless, wheatless and porkless days were 
decreed. The portions of bread and of meat 
were regulated by law. Sugar, which had 
become verv scarce, was a luxury on many 
tables. But the weakness of the conserva- 
tion programme was that it was only readily 




■ International Film Service 
Huge mortars guarding the Atlantic Coast at Fort DuPont, near Delaware City. These guns have a range sufficiently great 
to render the approach of enemy ships to the coast extremely hazardous 



For the first time in the national experi- 
ence of the United States its people were con- 
fronted with a scarcity of food in the early 
days of 1918. The shortage was, of course, 
not due to any failure of supplies for our own 
personal needs. But we were bound to sup- 
ply the needs of our allies, most of which 
were food-importing countries in time of 
peace, and therefore doubly in need in time 
of war when much of their agricultural labor 
was diverted to their armies. In order that 



enforceable against hotels, restaurants and 
other public eating places. These the offi- 
cials could watch to see that the regulations 
were obeyed. Indeed no supervision was 
needed. The hotelkeeper very cheerfully 
gave his patrons the smaller portions, charged 
the same prices that he had for the larger 
ones, and pocketed his enchanced profits with 
a virtuous sense of patriotic duty done. But 
over the millions of private homes there 
could be no supervision maintained, and in 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



279 



them was no profit made except at the sacri- 
fice of appetite. Nevertheless a wide-spread 
sense of duty and of our obligations to our 
allies caused the conservation regulations 
to be most generally observed and practiced. 




' Am. Press Assn. 
National Guardsmen on Long Island guarding the water supply of New York City. 
The act of a crank might imperil the safety of thousands, and while there is no great 
fear of this, the watchfulness of the guards has not been relaxed 

To be stinted in food because of war was, 
however, a brand new experience for America. 
Dissatisfaction with the direction of mili- 
tary affairs began to be openly and officially 
expressed about this period. In the United 



States politicians are always 
for political advantage, but in this instance 
the attack upon the administration came 
from members of its own party. The charge 
was made publicly in the Senate by Mr. 
Chamberlain, of Oregon, 
that the War Department 
had "fallen down" in its 
conduct of affairs, and the 
charge was followed up by 
both Democratic and Re- 
publican senators. Mr. 
Chamberlain, as Chairman 
of the Senate Committee on 
Military Affairs, had worked 
valiantly to put through 
legislation devised by the 
administration which gave 
the more force to his attack 
upon the executive powers. 
His objection was rather to 
the failure of the Secretary 
of War to equip rapidly and 
adequately the troops when 
raised, than to any dilatori- 
ness in raising the army. 
The latter work indeed had 
been extraordinarily well 
done. 

At the beginning of 1916 
the United States Army 
numbered 5,016 officers and 
92,973 men, including 5,733 
Philippine scouts. Small 
wonder that Germany, which 
then had not less than 
8,coo,coo men under arms, 
looked with contempt upon 
the protests of so ill-defend- 
ed a nation. Nor did the 
bloody storm then raging 
in Europe awake the 
American Congress to any 
sense of its duty. Though 
an ever increasing body of 
men in the United States 
recognized that we should 
inevitably be brought into 
that conflict, and urged 
continually the necessity for 
adequate preparation for 
the day of wrath, the nation as a whole was 
indifferent and Congress was hostile to any 
far-reaching plan for army extension. 

Mr. Bryan's fine sounding phrase that if 
the country were indeed endangered "a 



28o 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




After a full eight hours of training, it is not necessary t 

of watchful waiting, with tin cups, 

million men would leap to arms between sun- 
rise and sunset" was accepted as gospel by 
thousands of citizens who never stopped 
to enquire whether there were arms to leap 
to — as in fact there were not. Indeed when 
it became time to ask for volunteers for the 
regular army it took a trifle more than four 
months to secure 183,898 
men needed to bring the 
regular army up to its then 
maximum war strength of 
300,000 — a record rather 
difFerent from a million men 
between sunrise and sunset. 
However, volunteers for the 
national guard, the reserve 
army and the navy were 
more plentiful. 

None the less the record 
of the nation in securing 
soldiers for its armies was 
highly creditable when its 
long enjoyment of peace, its 
utter detachment from 
anything like militarism, 
and the very diverse nature 
of its population are con- 
sidered. To raise armies 
of the proportions needed 
by the volunteer system 



the mess-call more than once. They are seen here in attitudes 
knives and forks in readiness for duty 

alone was soon found impossible. That 
was a failure not peculiar to the United 
States, but common to all democracies. 
England gave volunteering a most thorough 
test and was forced to come to conscription 
in the second year of the war. Canada, 
after making an admirable record with 




© Underwood & Underwood 
Yankee troops going over the top in training. With such impetus behind them, 
they could go through a steel wall, and could never be stopped by the Teutons or 
any other foe 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



2*1 




The Tennessee National Guard receiving instruction in signal work 



volunteers, adopted conscription in 191 7. 
Our own nation had to resort to the draft 
to win its Civil War. The United States, 
most wisely, did not exhaust in this new 
crisis the possibilities of the volunteer sys- 
tem before resorting to the draft. It was 
shown very quickly that the volunteer sys- 
tem at once swept the country clear of its 
most patriotic and devoted, its most able, 
alert and intelligent youth. The dullard. 




© Committee on Public Information 
Non-commissioned officers at Camp Hancock demonstrating a bayonet charge under 
the instruction of the English officer on the right. There isn't a Boche alive who could 
withstand this charging line of cold steel with Yankee punch behind it 



the indifferent, the incapable, were left be- 
hind. A volunteer army would be made up 
of men in all ranks who ought to be officers 
over an army made up of every class of 
citizens. Considerations such as these led 
Congress very speedily after the declaration 
of war to enact legislation providing for the 
enrollment for military service of all able- 
bodied males between the ages of 21 and 31 
years of age inclusive. 

Not unnaturally there 
sf&\ was some anxiety among 

thoughtful citizens as to 
how this order would be re- 
ceived. The nation harbor- 
ed a large body of sincere 
pacificists whose protests 
against the declaration of 
war had been pressed up to 
the last minute. How would 
they treat a summons to 
serve in the army? We 
had within our borders 
millions of foreign-born citi- 
zens and aliens, many of 
them from the Teutonic 
countries. The registration 
order made no exception of 
anv of this class. How 
would they meet the first 
step in a policy which might 



282 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Crews (it interned German ships at Honolulu being taken into custody by the military authorities after a bold attempt to destroy 

their ships 



force them to bear arms against the country 
of their birth, and perhaps of their present 
allegiance? The questions were grave ones, 
and doubting people remembered the bloody 
riots with which the City of New York resist- 
ed the operation of the draft in 1863. 

But the registration held on June 5, 1917, 




1; I'n.k-r 
American officers with their British instructors at a British trai 

western front 



proceeded in every state of the Union with- 
out any resistance or violent outbreak what- 
soever. More than nine and a half mdlions 
of men came up to the places of registry, 
and enrolled their names, answering the 
questions prescribed that the authorities 
might afterwards judge of their fitness for 
active service. The whole 
epoch-making undertaking 
went off with even more 
smoothness than a presidential 
election. 

The next step was the 
selection from the whole 
number of registrants the 
687,000 men whom it had 
been determined should con- 
stitute the first draft. On 
registering each man had been 
given a number, and in some 
districts where the population 
was large these numbers ran 
up as high as 10,500. In all 
there were 4,557 registration 
districts. The individual 
registrant therefore would be 
known as Number B in Dis- 
trict X. It was determined to 
hold a central drawing at 



1 & Underw 1 

ning camp on the 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



183 



Washington in which numbers 
up to 10,500 would be drawn 
from a wheel. Every man 
holding such a number would 
be summoned for service. 
Many districts of course had 
no such number of registrants 
and would only furnish men 
in proportion to the numbers 
enrolled. 

The occasion was an his- 
toric one and a contemporary 
description of the scene will 
be interesting. The drawing 
was held in one of the rooms 
of the Senate Office Building 
and was conducted by Secre- 
tary of War Baker. An eye 
witness writes of the scene: 

A handkerchief was tied about the 
eyes of Secretary Baker, the camera 
squad focused their instruments, the calcium light 
of the movie operators played upon the big black- 
boards in the rear, and the lottery began. 

Secretary Baker plunged his hand into the large 
glass jar containing the 10,500 numbers inclosed in 
capsules and drew one, announcing to the spectators, 
"I have drawn the first number." A clerk assigned 
by the War Department opened the capsule and an- 
nounced "258." An officer seated at the long table 
upon which were spread the tally sheets repeated the 




r Undtrwood «.v Underwood 
The reception of the first American combatant force which arrived at the Aisne 
battle-front. They were welcomed most cordially by the French soldiers and 
officers, and were cheered continuously 

number, and another clerk walked to a large black- 
board at the rear and wrote upon it the figures. Sen- 
ator Chamberlain of Oregon, likewise blindfolded, drew 
the second number. He was plainly nervous. His 
hand was guided to the top of the jar, which was four- 
teen inches in diameter. "The second number is 
2,522," said the announcer, and again there came the 
click of the cameras, the rustle of copy paper, and the 
murmur of excited men and women who thronged the 
committee room. 




Lined up for mess; wailing through a sea of mud after a heavy rainfal 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



•285 



Members of Congress and high officials of the army 
attended the start of the drawing. Eight numbers were 
drawn by officials before the ceremony became routine, 
with students from various universities acting as the 
blindfolded withdrawers of the fateful capsules. 

A round of applause greeted the appearance of Gen- 
eral Crowder, who had worked tirelessly for days per- 
fecting the details of the nationwide lottery. Adjt. 

Gen. McCain, 
too, was ap- 
plauded by 



Secretary Baker said : " We will wait a moment while the 
photographers remove their apparatus. Meanwhile I 
want to ask that perfect quiet prevail. This is a most 
important occasion and absolute quiet is necessary." 
John Phillips, a student of Princeton University, was 
the first "regular teller" who took his place at the glass 
jar and began to draw out the capsules — black looking 
affairs, because the paper upon which the numbers were 
written was coated black on the outer surface. It was 
impossible for any one to examine the exterior of a cap- 
sule and ascertain the number within. The blindfold- 




Three super dreadnoughts. Ships of this class give America confidence in the prowess of her navy when pitted against 

the mighty battleships of other nations 



the throng which crowded the committee rooms. 
Members of the Senate and House Committees on 
Military Affairs and other members of Congress occu- 
pied seats of honor at the drawing. 

The unprecedented ceremony seemed particularly 
to impress Representative Julius Kahn, who had led 
the fight in the House on the Army Draft bill. "It is 
an inspiring sight," he commented as he left the room 
soon after the proceedings settled down to a routine 
basis. Mr. Kahn was born in Germany and came to 
the United States when a child. 

As the eighth number was drawn by an official, 



ing lent an additional touch of the dramatic to the 
event, but it was unnecessary. Every few minutes 
Major Gen. C. A. Devol, delegated by Secretary Baker 
to guard the glass container, walked over to stir the cap- 
sules with a long wooden spoon. On the handle of the 
spoon was a piece of bunting, red, white and blue. 
General Devol stirred deeply, bringing the capsules at 
the bottom to the top and a few moments later sending 
the capsules at the top to the bottom. While this 
stirring process was on there was a momentary pause 
in the recording of the numbers. The only interrup- 
tions were the frequent changes of tired announcers 



286 

and tabulators and the removal 
of the blackboards. When a 
group of 500 numbers had been 
written the first section of the 
board was taken out to be 
photographed to establish an ab- 
solute record, while a second 
section was substituted. 

The lottery ended at ::i, 
o'clock on the morning of July 
21, and later the same day the 
figures were officially checked 
and rechecked in the office of 
General Crowder. There were 
a number of tally sheets kept 
simultaneously, in addition to 
the recording of the drawn 
numbers on two blackboards, 
and every number was gone over 
and checked by a force of experts 
under the supervision of army 
officers. The result of the draw- 
ing was set into type at the 
Government Printing Office. 
"Master sheets" containing the 
numbers in the order in which 
they were drawn were then sent 
by General Crowder to each 
Governor and distributed toeach 
local registration board. 

Thereafter the 
work of organiz- 
ing the National 
Army as the 
drafted men were 
called, to distin- 
guish them from 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 

the Regular Army and the 
National Guard, proceed- 
ed smoothly. In details 
of about 30% of the total 
enrollment they were sum- 
moned to their places of 
registration, where boards 
of exemption heard the 
pleas of such as desired to 
escape military service, or 
considered the surgeons' 
reports upon such as 
seemed to suffer from 
physical disabilities. 
The pleas for exemption 
weremany andvaried often 
reflecting serious discredit 
upon the patriotism and 
good faith of the men 
offering them. But in 
proportion to the great 
mass who loyally accepted 
their responsibility to the 
\ field telephone with a special reel connects the republic these slackers 
balloon with the ground. The success or failure of were but few, and it IS in- 
an attack depends largely on the accuracy of the teresting to kllOW that even 
aerial observer's reports they, after a month or SO 

of training in the military encamp- 
ments to which they were sent, usually 
became enthusiastic soldiers and 
bitterly resented any effort to send 
them home for slight physical defects 
developed under training. 

To house this army, so rapidly 







\ 




While balloons take no part in aerial fighting, reconnoitering or bomb dropping, thej arc invaluable foi of. 

and for spotting artillery fire 



ser\ atiun purposes 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



>8 7 




Ambassador James W. Gerard, with Mrs. Gerard, on their return from Germany 



created, huge camps or cantonments were 
needed and sixteen of these were hastily 
constructed in various sections of the country. 
They were groups of frame structures, scat- 
tered over wide fields and accommodating 
ahout 40,000 men to the cantonment. Six- 
teen other camps were built for the National 
Guard, eight for the aviation corps, and two 
great concentration camps at Newport News, 



Virginia, and Tenafly, N. J., for the reception 
of troops on their way to the ships that were 
to convev them to Europe. 

The details of making this vast army of 
citizens into a true army must be passed over 
hastily here, interesting though they are. 
Soldiers are not made in a day and the Ameri- 
can, adaptable as he is, does not develop into 
a trained soldier any more rapidly than any 













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Von Bernstorff, formerly German Ambassador to the United States, with Mrs. Von BernstortF (at the extreme left) leaving 

Washington on their way back to Germany 



288 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 






j^iittlfilii 




' "IfD^P^ 



A new gun carriage invented by two marines being used at the Marine Corps cantonment at Quantico, Va. It is so light that 
it can easily he drawn over all obstacles by two men, yet it is strong enough to withstand steady, hard service 

other man 
us was not 



Perhaps the process with 
hastened by the fact that our 
scandalous indifference to military prepara- 
tion had resulted in such a shortage of arms 
that for months our soldiers drilled with 
wooden cannon and with "broomstick" 
rifles. It was this situation, together with 
the discovery of scandalous shortages in 
overcoats and underwear in the middle of a 
winter of exceptional severity, that aroused 
the ire of Senator Chamberlain. A type of 
machine gun of which hundreds of thousands 
were in use in the Allied armies had been 
rejected by our ordnance department, be- 
cause it was thought another gun — not then 
manufactured — might prove su- 
perior. In the search for the ideal 
the department rejected the ob- 
tainable and 
result 




The Hnal jump into the Trench seen above looks very simple, but bitter 
resistance is almost certain to be met 



our bovs had practically no machine guns at 
all. Nor was the situation much better with 
respect to other munitions of war. 

At the beginning of 191 8 the authorized 
strength of the army was 1,437,000 officers 
and men, under these classifications: 

Regular Army 300,000 

National Guard 450,000 

National Army (first call) . . . 687,000 

All of these classes were recruited to full 
strength, and there were besides from 75,000 
to 100,000 men enrolled in officers' reserves, 
training camps and various reserve organiza- 
tions. It was at that time the purpose of 
the war department to secure the immediate 
enlargement of the army to 2,300,000 men. 
The report of the Secretary of the Navy 
in December of 1917 showed a most gratify- 
ing increase in the strength of that branch of 
our armed service. Details 
were naturally omitted from 
the report, but since January 
of that year the personnel had 
increased from 4,500 officers 
and 68,000 men to 15,000 offi- 
cers and 254,000 men; the 
naval reserve from a few 
hundred to 49, 246;the Nation- 
al Naval \ olunteers from zero 
to 16,000 men; the Marine 
Corps from 344 officers and 
9,921 men to 1,197 officers and 
30,000 men, and the number 
of ships in commission from 
a little more than 300 to more 
than 1,000. To this Secretary 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



189 




A review in camp "somewhere in France." There is no let-up in the intensive training of our soldiers "over there," and pa- 
rades are held as often as possible to stimulate the group spirit 



Daniels added in his testimony before the 
House Committee on Naval Affairs that 424 
new ships were in course of construction, not 
including 350 submarine chasers. 

As was to have been expected the financial 
preparations for the war made by the United 
States were on a colossal scale and made 
with great celerity. The rousing periods 
of the President's speech were still reverber- 
ating throughout the 
land when Congress 
voted the enormous war 
credit of seven billion 
dollars. Three billion 
of this, it may be noted, 
was to be loaned to our 
allies, for the United 
States in entering upon 
the war assumed her 
share of the burden of 
financing the less pros- 
perous peoples fighting 
by her side — a burden 
which theretofore Great 
Britain had cheerfully 
borne. Our total ex- 
penditures for the first 
year of the war were 
estimated in Congress 
at this time at 
$18,208,228,085 — or 
about 23% of what all 
the other governments 
had spent in three years. 
Much of this expendi- 
ture was to be met by 
borrowing money of the 



people and accordingly before the end of 
191 7 two loans — called "Liberty Loans" 
were offered to the people at 3*2 and 4 per 
cent respectively- Both were enormously 
oversubscribed although ruling interest rates 
were much higher. The patriotic spirit ot the 
people responded nobly to the government 
appeal and made it evident at the very 
outset that any demands whatsoever for 
financial support would be cheerfully met. 
It cannot be said that neither at the mo- 
ment the United States declared war, nor 




Over the top on to the enemy. Embryo officers in the training camp at fort Myer, Va.. 
practicing the final run up a trench parapet before they land in the enemy's trench with 
fixed bayonets 



290 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



during the twelve months 
consumed in making our 
leisurely preparations for it 
was the situation such as 
to inspire perfect confi- 
dence in the Allies' success. 
The charge cannot be laid 
against our government 
that it entered upon a war 
at the eleventh hour to 
snatch the glory of victory 
from those who had 
already won it. For while 
few dispassionate and well- 
equipped observers have 
doubted that the Teutonic 
alliance would ultimately 
go down to smashing de- 
feat, the last months of 

1917 and the first of 

1918 seemed to be piled 




U. S. 



marines 1 



11 Fl 




c [nteraational Film Service 
Ready for their first dose of gas. Soldiers at the front are 
given experience in specially built dug-outs, which they enter 
with gas masks on 



■ Comm. on Pub. Information 
nice practising hand-grenade throwing under French instruction 

with the chronicles of their successes. 

During that winter the world saw the 
Italians fighting doggedly on the defensive, 
after having for two years held the offensive. 
For years they had menaced Trieste and 
Vienna itself. Now they were fighting to 
keep the foe from Venice and Padua, while 
the Austrian airplanes were even flying over 
Imperial Rome. The collapse of the Italian 
Line would not only put Italy at the mercy 
of the foe but it would open a most con- 
venient back entrance to France for the 
Austrian troops. Throughout the war that 
rigid and impassable line extending from the 
North Sea to Switzerland has rested its right 
flank on the hitherto immolated neutrality 
of the Mountain Republic. How long that 
neutrality will hold no man can say. The 
German record leaves no reason to doubt that 
if the action seemed to promise fortunate re- 
sults, and if the Kaiser possessed sufficient 
troops to undertake the operation, Swiss neu- 
trality would receive as scant deference as 
was accorded to that of Belgium or of Lux- 
embourg. It would be brushed aside and the 
green-grav legions of Germany would make 
of the Swiss passes a new highway into 
France, entering beyond the farthest eastern 
point of the French line of defense. 

But if the Austro-Germans could break 
the Italian lines at the Piave and Asiago 
they would overflow northern Italy and 
easily menace France on her southern fron- 
tier without finding it needful to invade 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



291 




Arrival of American troops in Franc 



© Kadel & Herbert, from Underwood & Underwood 
After landing, the soldiers march off to camp 




o Central Photo News Service 
A naval militiaman guarding Brooklyn Bridge, New York. 
Early in 1917 about 2,000 guardsmen were called into service 
to prevent destruction of property by cranks 



Switzerland at all It was 
this menace which sent 
French and British troops 
at the double quick into 
Italy to strengthen this 
vital line of defense. It was 
this possibility, too, that 
the United States was forced 
to contemplate as she push- 
ed on her preparations for 
active war. 

The Russian situation, 
too, dady grew worse. Un- 
trained in either war or 
statecraft, and inclined to 
look upon both as relics of 
barbarism and autocracy 
which it was their mission 
to overthrow, the leaders 
of the revolutionary faction 
which acquired supreme 
power in Russia were out- 
generaled and outmanoeuvred at every point 
by the Germans with whom they had tried to 
negotiate. When their parleys were over they 
found themselves without an army, with the 
Germans seizing upon their most fruitful and 
profitable territories, with an indemnity of 
$4,000,000,000 assessed upon them by the 
very adversaries who had declared as a 
cardinal precept of their programme for 
peace "No Annexations and No Indem- 
nities." 

How Russia is to emerge from what at the 
moment appear to be her insurmountable 
difficulties we shall see — but not soon enough 
to have a bearing on the fortunes of this war. 
The subject is adverted to here as being one 
of the new and depressing conditions which 
confronted our country almost immediately 
upon our entrance upon the war. It was 
not made the less perplexing by the apparent 
eagerness of Japan to send her troops into 
Russian territory — nominally to protect 
property against the German forces, but 
probably with a keen eye to the chance for 
extending the Japanese power over the Asi- 
atic mainland. 

The European Allies apparently are, at 
the moment of this writing, inclined to ac- 
quiesce in the Japanese proposition. The 
United States holds off. There has long 
been in this country a certain feeling of 
doubt as to Japan's international programme. 
Partly it comes, logically enough, from her 
position on the opposite shore of the Pacific 



292 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




American troops marching through St. James Park, London. No troops from overseas have had such acclaim and honor 
in England as those from the United States. These men are the second contingent sent overseas and will be trained in Eng- 
land, joining Pershing's forces in about seven weeks 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



293 




© Undenvood & Underwood 
General Pershing and his staff inspecting United States Marines, billeted in a village in France 



clearly destined to contest with us at some 
future time for control of that great ocean. 
Partly it springs from the strong opposition 
of our organized labor to anything that savors 
of any closer ties with the Asiatic or yellow 
races. Partly it is the outgrowth of syste- 



her wheatfields and oil wells are at German 
disposal. The treaty forced upon the Bol- 
sheviki has freed the Turk from any further 
fear of Russian military activity in Armenia or 
any part of Asia Minor. The handful of 
British troops at Bagdad, Aleppo and Jerusa- 



matic and sinister agitation by a group of lem must guard themselves with no further 
powerful anti-Japanese forces in the United hope of making a junction with the Rus- 
States. As a product of these various causes sians, who so gallantly took Erzerum and 
the doubt and distrust of 
Japan among the Ameri 
can people has become 
so strong as to make the 
question whether the 
Japanese are to have a 
free hand in Russia 
almost as perplexing a 
one to our government 
as the apparent alterna- 
tive of letting Germany 
have the free hand. 

Turning from the Far 
to the Near East we find 
the situation in the Bal- 
kans not one to inspire 
American confidence. 

JxOUiTldnid lias Completed Learning how to use a gun butt. The modern rifleman must learn to use his rifle with the 
net separate peace and ease of a drum-major on parade 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 




A brush with the enemy. Merchant fleets crossing the ocean under the protection of convoy have little to fear from submarines. 

sailing ships or in viola- 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



295 




The ruthless warfare waged by Germany's U-Boats has met with only fair success except in attacks on unarmed or slow 
tion of international law 



296 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



Trebizor.d. The hapless 
Armenians are handed back 
to the Turkish murderers 
and violators whom all the 
forces of civilized Europe have 
for 50 years been unable to 
check. Under the protecting 
irony of German power and 
German Kultur the Turks are 
again to have their wdl of 
this unfortunate people. 

But while all seemed dis- 
couraging in the eastern and 
southeastern situation when 
the United States entered the 
war, the position of the armies 
in the west left little to be de- 
sired. There the Allies still 
outnumbered their foes in the 
proportion of about 3 to 2, 

and if the Germans had pros- .,., 

- , . K. 1 he .1 

pect or bringing men trom 

their eastern front to swell their ranks, the 
Allies witnessed the actual landing of Ameri- 
can soldiers in France and England at the 
rate of more than 10,000 a week. The new- 
comers from the western hemisphere were 
fresh troops, admirably equipped and eager 
for action. If they fell short of the Ger- 
mans drawn from the eastern front in the 




al of An 



uncan tr< 




One of the newer types of anti-aircraft guns used by the Navy. These guns 
bore, but are mounted so they can be swung in any direction 



■ Underwood & Underwood 

imewhere in France" 

make up the vet- 
amply compensated 
spirit with which 
action. The first 
who fell in the trenches 
died, crying to his men: 
boys, steady! We can 
if they're ten to one." 

In one part of the 
American sector in 
Lorraine a large sign 
between the hostile 
trenches bore the defi- 
ant legend : 

"There's no more No 
Man's Land. This is 
Yankee land!" 

In this spirit of confi- 
dent defiance our men 
entered upon active 
service. At the moment 
our columns began to 
pour into France the 
world was expecting a 
great German offensive. 
All signs pointed to it. 
The German officers 
themselves proclaimed 
it, and it was even said 
early in March that 
neutral correspondents 
had been invited to be 
on the ground at a 
specified date to witness 
its inauguration. There 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Lnited States Naval Reserves parading in Chicago, Illinois, to stimulate enlistment 



were reasons why so desperate an adventure 
should be undertaken, but there were others 
quite as cogent why it should not. 

In its support was the growing conviction 
that only on the French battlefields could 
the issues of the war be determined. A 
sweeping victory there would destroy the re- 
sisting power of the loser and end the war. 
If the Germans could pierce the Allied lines, 
and capture Calais and other channel ports 
they would be able to stop the 
shipment of reinforcements to 
the Allies. They could prose- 
cute with renewed efficiency 
their submarine campaign. 
They would to a great extent 
be able to bar the United 
States from the theatre of war. 
But if they failed they would 
themselves be utterly de- 
stroyed. 

On the other hand, if the 
Germans so chose they could 
rest content with holding the 
Allies inactive in France while 
they themselves prosecuted 
the work of increasing their 
conquests in Russia, and build- 
ing up the territory they had 
there seized upon. They 
might devote themselves to 
relieving the pressure of star- 



vation and privations upon their peaceful 
population at home by building up the 
productive agencies of the vast agricultural 
domain they had conquered in Russia, and 
the industrial facilities of Russian Poland. 
They might build themselves a huge new 
empire in the east while holding the Eng- 
lish, French and Americans at bay in the 
trenches of France. If they chose they 
might descend on the Allied expedition 




© Underwood & Underwood 
American flag placed in St. Paul's Cathedral for the first time. Scene on the 
Cathedral steps during the ceremony when the flags of the American Legion, the 
first to be brought over from America, were honored 



298 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




© E. Muller, Jr. 
American destroyer starting a smokescreen. Speeding at thirty knots while emitting dense clouds of the blackest, foulest smoke, 
these greyhounds of the sea have become the terrors of naval warfare 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



299 










W 



-j 



.Marshal JofFre reviewing the West Point Cadets. He is seen saluting the colors as they pass by 



at Saloniki and drive it into the sea — for 
under the changed conditions it would 
not be difficult for the Teutons and their 
Balkan allies to raise an army large enough 
for this purpose. But if they chose to 
avoid righting, build up their shattered ranks, 
and rebuild their ruined economic structure, 
every month would add to their strength. 
One flaw only appeared in the logic of those 



who held that this would be the proper 
course for the Germans to pursue — every 
month also added to the number of Yankee 
soldiers in Europe. 

Many believed that the policy of inaction 
on the western front would in fact be the 
German strategy. Shrewd observers sug- 
gested that it had not been customary for 
the sinister trio — the Kaiser, Hindenburg and 




,V: ©Kadel& 

American troops landing "Somewhere in France," on the transport Antilles, which was torpedoed and sunk on 

her return trip with a loss of 67 lives 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



301 




© Underwood & Underwood 
One of Uncle Sam's army aviation schools, at North Island, near San Diego, California 



Ludendorff — to advertise widely what they 
were planning to do. Their practice had 
been to determine their course and then 
strike — suddenly, savagely and without 
warning. But the reported drive had been 
advertised like a circus. For four months 
it was discussed openly in German financial 
circles. Every possible warning had been 
given the Allies to prepare for it, and there 



was every reason to suspect that after all it 
was a bit of camouflage. 

And all the time the sinister work of in- 
trigue was being prosecuted by the German 
agents in every land. The pose of the Ger- 
mans was for peace, but of course a German 
peace based on the theory that the war was 
already won by them. In every land, and in 
every section of society the plotters were at 




Laying out a line of trenches to guard a railroad spur. At the training camp at Fort Myer, \ a., the problems ol trench warfare 

are worked out in detail 



302 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




THE NATIONS AT WAR 



30.1 




© International Film Service 
French officers instructing American units in France. Even the best baseball arm must learn the trick of throwing hand-grenades 



work. The labor organizations and labor 
politicians were an especially favored field 
for their endeavors. In England they 
brought about a serious demand for a peace 
conference within the ranks of the Labor 
Party. Shrewd and determined efforts were 
made to extend the movement to the United 
States, but without success. In this coun- 
try the leaders of organized labor clearly 
saw that the only way to peace was through 



the winning of the war, and that at this junc- 
ture talk of peace was both futile and un- 
patriotic. 

But the American response to the German 
overtures for peace was wholly negligible. 
In a few radical circles, where the doctrine of 
internationalism had made progress, there 
was some discussion of ending the war by 
neutral concessions, of accepting a "peace 
without victorv." Even so all such discus- 



T .111 *! 




Awarding the French Legion of Honor to aviators commended for bravery and daring. There are several grades of this honor, 
all of them higher than the Military Medal and the Cross of War 



3°4 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




General Ferdinand Foch, Generalissimo of the Allied Armies 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



3°S 




The arrival of some of theambtyo officers ar rhe Plattsburg training camp 




© Press Illustrated Service 
I his 16-inch shell weighs 2,400 pounds. It can pierce the thickest armor 
plate used by any navy, and has a range of 21 miles 



sions were founded on the theory 
that the German people were op- 
posed to the war, and that only by 
the heavy hand of their military 
government were they compelled to 
prosecute it. Unhappily this was a 
theory absolutely incapable of proof. 
The facts concerning the internal 
affairs of Germany, whether the 
state of public opinion or the condi- 
tion of the public larder, were almost 
impossible of ascertainment. The 
dead wall of anjimpenetrable censor- 
ship shut off all frank and free com- 
munication with the outerworld, while 
the newspapers were muzzled with 
an efficiency which made them value- 
less as indices to German public 
opinion. 

People of the Allied countries 
thought the German people must be 
opposed to the war because it seemed 
reasonable that they should be. Their 
sacrifices had been prodigious; their 
sufferings cruel. There was — from 
our point of view — no possible hope 
of victory remaining to them. But 
their point of view was very different. 
The circumstances, discouraging to 
the United States, which have been re- 
counted in the foregoing paragraphs, 
were exploited in Germany by the 
military authorities for all they were 
worth. The Russian situation was 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




© Underwood & Underwood 
The first battalion of the New York Naval Militia who were called to the colors 



celebrated as a colossal victory — and not 
without reason. The separate peace with 
Roumania was signalized as a triumph which 
would at once end Germany's food priva- 
tions. That the Kaiser's victorious troops 
should leave occupied Riga and Odessa, the 
chief Baltic and the principal Black Sea 
ports of Russia, was offered as a measure of 
the victory there, and the champions of 



continuing war were not slow to point 
out that the latter was the center of 
the greatest wheat producing district of the 
world. The treaty forced upon Russia 
opened a new route to British India for Ger- 
man and Turkish armies, and the people of 
the Teutonic states were inflamed with the 
promise that the war would presently be 
carried thither, England struck in the back, 




"School of the Pick and Shovel." When the war is over there will be many expert shovelmen, for the months of training of 

the National Army consists largely of trench-building 




GREAT BRITAIN 



Government: 

Ruler: 

Area: 

Population: 

Date of entering the war: 

Army (present): 

Navy: 



Commerce with Germany 
before the war: 

Greatest exports: 

Reason for entering the war: 



National Wealth: 
National Debt: 



Constitutional monarchy 

George V. 

7,625,000 square miles 

61,650,000 

August 4, 1914 

5.000,000 

About: 37 dreadnoughts, 25 
p r e ■ d r e adnoughts, 128 
cruisers, 262 destroyers, 
116 submarines 

Exports, $330,740,000; [im- 
ports, $201,480,000 

Iron and steel manufactures 

To uphold Belgium's vio- 
lated neutrality and aid 
her ally, France 

$85,000,000,000 

$23,500,000,000 



UNITED STATES 


Government: 


Republic 


President: 


Woodrow Wilson 


Area: 


3.027.000 square miles 


Population: 


103.600,000 


Date of entering the war: 


April 6, 1917 


Army (war basis): 


1.500,000 


Navy: 


About: 15 dreadnoughts, 20 




p r e -d r e a dnoughts, 35 




cruisers, 74 destroyers, 




66 submarines 



Commerce with Germany 
before the war: 

Commerce with Germany 
after the war: 

Greatest exports: 

Reason for entering the war : 



Exports, $344,794,276: im- 
ports, $189,919,136 (1914) 

Exports, $288,899; imports, 
$13,943,743 (1916) 

Raw cotton 

To maintain the rights of 
nations, to protest against 
Germany's ruthless meth- 
ods of warfare, and to 
make the world safe for 
democracy 





FRANCE 



Government : 

Ruler: 

Area: 

Population: 

Date of entering the war: 

Army (field strength): 

Navy: 



Commerce with Germany 
before .the war : 

Greatest export: 

Reason for entering the war : 

National Wealth: 
National Debt: 



Republic 

Raymond Poincare 

207,000 square miles 

40,000,000 

August 3. 1914 

2,000,000 

About: 12 dreadnoughts, 19 
pre-drea dnoughts, 34 
cruisers, 90 destroyers 
100 submarines 

Exports. $102,200,000; im- 
ports, $122,800,000 

Manufactured goods 

In self defence against Ger- 
man attack 

$62,000,000,000 

$20,000,000,000 



RUSSIA 



Government: 



Ruler: 

Area: 

Population: 

Date of entering the war : 

Army (war basis): 

Navy: 



Commerce with 
before the war: 



Germany 



Republic (provisional) since 

March, 1917 
■> 

8,373,000 square miles 

170,000,000 

August 1, 1914 

5.000,000 
About: 7 dreadnoughts, 11 
pre-drea dnoughts. 19 
cruisers, 131 destroyers, 
41 submarines 



Greatest exports: 

Reason for entering the war ; 



Exports, $230,811,720; im- 
ports, $213,076,470 
Food stuff, raw material 
Russia has always claimed, 
herself champion of the 
Slavs and protector of 
Serbia. When Austria de- 
clared war on the latter, 
Russia entered the war 
against the Central Pow- 
ers 




3 o8 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




(£) Brown Bros. 

The King, Queen and Lord French watching the United States troops march past Buckingham Palace 



and victory with indemnities that should 
cover all the war expenditures were the pleas- 




A British tank doing stunts at Camp Upton, Yaphank, New 
York. This tank, weighing thirty-six tons, travels over rough 
country, hills and trenches at about four miles an hour, armed 
with six Lewis machine guns 



ant pictures displayed at this time to the 
German people by their rulers. The san- 
guine hopes of a certain class of international 
pacifist agitators were thus blocked by the 
logic of the war. 

Persistent and resourceful as were these 
agitators, it did not, therefore, appear at this 
moment that their endeavors would bear any 
fruit. Germany was too elated with tempo- 
rary victory to consider any but a most fa- 
vorable peace, and the German people, on 
whose unrest and dissatisfaction such high 
hopes had been builded, shared the beliefs of 
their rulers. There appeared, therefore, 
when the United States entered upon the war, 
no prospect save that it must be fought out 
to a military decision. That decision mili- 
tary critics almost universally agreed must 
be sought on the plains of Flanders, in the 
wooded hills of the Argonne, in the defiles of 
the Vosges. That long ragged line across 
France, so plentifully watered by the blood 
of heroes in the last four years, must yet be 
obliterated. The world cannot be made safe 
for democracy until the battle ground is 
thrust back from the soil of republican France 
to that of despotic Germany, and victory be 
won there, victory complete and unqualified 
over Kaiser, Emperor and Sultan — over the 
Boche, the Hun and the Turk. The United 
States has well undertaken its share of this 
service to humanity. 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



3°9 




Monster 



parade on Sept. 8, 1917, showing New York's National Guard passing the Public Library at 42nd Street 




United States troops marching 



© Brown Bros, 
ing through Trafalgar Square, London, are welcomed by an enthusiastic crowd 







L_ 



CHAPTER XII 



MOVING THE ARMY TO EUROPE OUR SOLDIERS IN TRAINING 

THE SHIP SHORTAGE LOSS OF THE "TUSCANIa" AMERICANS IN 

ACTION PROPORTIONS OF THE GREAT WAR — ITS COST IN LIFE 



IN the early summer of 1917 the task of 
ferrying the American army to Europe 
was begun. It was an undertaking of 
colossal magnitude. To carry an army 
which Secretary Baker declared would number 
bv the end of 1918 more than 1,500,000 

of open 
Iy, dan- 
was a n 
tax to the 
mand of 
the skill 

Ioffic e r s 
to con- 
1 duct the 
o w d e d 
oops h 1 ps 
rough the 
nger zone, 
t it was not 
until February 2, 
191 8, when about 
one-third of the task 
had been complet- 
ed, that the first 
boche torpedo got 
home on a British 
transport, the Tus- 
cania, and cost the 
lives of many 
American soldiers 
whom she was carrying to England. 

General John J. Pershing, "Black Jack" 
as he was called, fresh from his punitive ex- 
pedition into Mexico in search of the bandit 
Villa, was appointed Commander-in-chief of 
the American forces in France and with his staff 
went thither in June. For a base of supplies 
was selected a little French town, the name 
of which it is not permissible to print but 
which is probably thoroughly well known to 
the Germans. It has an excellent harbor, 
and though well down the southern coast of 




France possessed ample railroad facilities 
for distributing the hundreds of thousands 
of men who should presently pour through 
its gates. Not all of our men however went 
that way. Some were dispatched to Eng- 
land, and their reception as they marched 
through London's streets was enough to 
make every heart beat high, and cause every 
patriotic mind to rejoice that we had at last 
cast off the stigma of neutrality, and taken 
our places shoulder to shoulder with those 
who were, fighting for humanity and democ- 
racy. 

In France the troops were greeted with 
enthusiasm, almost with tears of joy. "You 
have come to save us!" was the usual French 
greeting. The little town which had been 
selected as a base was quickly made over by 
American capital and energy to. meet the 
needs of the friendly invaders. Great docks 
and breakwaters were constructed, railroad 
sidings, new roads and camps capable or 
holding 100,000 men were established. The 
villagers strove to learn English, and the 
soldiers to speak in French with the result 
that a new international patois was de- 
veloped. Commercially the village shop 
tried hard to please, and the second body of 
troops to arrive saw the once sedate little 
town transformed into a gay picnic place 
with as many souvenir and candy shops, 
and entertainment booths as Coney Island 
itself. An English journalist writing in Sep- 
tember of 1917 thus describes the fashion in 
which the "Sammees" — as the French per- 
sisted in calling them despite our men's 
scornful rejection of the nickname — had 
made themselves at home. 

The American troops in their billets, their camps, 
their training grounds, their rifle and gun practice 
grounds near the front, are already absolutely at home. 
The French villagers have adopted now a Franco- 
American language — sister tongue, though different, 
to the now classic Anglo-French spoken for three ye2rs 



311 



312 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




American troops marching to their quarters in France led by their own band 



from Calais downward. The American troops have 
made themselves at home, have settled all their ar- 
rangements with businesslike finality, and are out to 
do their job thoroughly. I heir bases near the front 
seemed to me already definitely organized. They are 
settled in villages, where they disturb the villagers by 
aggressive sanitation. They have abolished all dung- 
hills, to the old farmers' amazement and alarm. I hey 
have purified the water, cleaned up the streets, cottages, 
and farmyards. The villagers, at first terrified by these 




Marshal Joffre, Secretary Lansing, and Rene Viviani leaving the Mayflower 
on their arrival at Washington 



wild measures, are now reconciled, and every little 
village grocery sells American matches, American 
tobacco, American groceries, sterilized milk, "canned 
goods," American mustard, and everything American 
except American whisky. For at the messes, where I 
was received with open arms as an ally of today and 
forever — no American officer makes any doubt about 
that — cold American purified water and French coffee 
with American sterilized milk are the only drinks. 
Villages of France have become American, and Ameri- 
can cafe au lait colored cars, and motor 
bikes with side-cars tear all over the 
country driven by university boys turned 
chauffeurs. 

Our new allies are learning from us both 
— from us old allies, English and French. 
I first saw a French division in horizon 
blue teach the new American Army, in 
khaki and wearing British trench helmets, 
what a modern battle is like. It was a 
moving sight. It was poignant, really, 
when one heard that the French division 
had just come back from Verdun and was 
enacting over again in play what it had just 
done in terrible and glorious earnest. 1 he 
American Staff stood on a knoll watching, 
with the French Staff explaining. On 
the edge of the hill to the left of the 
staff the new American Army watched. 
Further to the left the French troops 
came on. F^very "poilu" among them 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



3'3 




After the landing. American soldiers imri 



liately after they have disembarked waiting tor other troops to join them 
marching to temporary quartets 



before 



had just come from the real thing. He grinned as he 
played at war this time, and one felt how he must enjoy 
playing at it now. But he played very well and ear- 
nestly. The whole thing was done as one has before 
watched it being done under less reassuring circum- 
stances for one's self. 

The lines advanced in open formation, then stopped 
for the barrage fire to be pushed forward. Flares were 
sent up to signal to the artillery. There was another 
step forward under barrage fire, another 
(sham) barrage fire, more flares and rock- 
ets, the horizon-blue line crept cautiously 
around to take the first trenches, the 
machine-gun parties came up. One more 
barrage fire and more signals, then the 
boche trenches below us were taken. 

It was all exactly as it would have been 
in real war. The American troops under- 
stood and appreciated keenly. \\ ho would 
not? These play-actors in the hollow at 
our feet had just come from the real trag- 
edy, and had fought and won, but had 
paid the price of victory. 

The American soldier (officers told me) 
understands the manoeuvre well. The 
officers find that their men are quick at 
grasping individual field work, i.e., make 
admirable noncommissioned officers with 
initiative, enterprise, and intelligence. 
French officers, many of whom speak 
English perfectly, while several American 



officers I met speak very good French, give enthusi- 
astic and intelligent assistance. French and Americans 
are not much alike in method or by temperament. 
I heard a French officer describing a battle with 
perfect technical accuracy, but also with dramatic 
expressiveness and with the literary sense. An Ameri- 
can officer immediately translated the French into 
American, and it was American — short, sharp, almost 
crackling with crisp Americanisms. It was the same 




© Underwood & Underwood 
Admiral Sims and Ambassador Page reviewing American troops marching 
through London 



3i4 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




© Harris & Ewing 



President Woodrow Wilson 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



315 




l_© Central News Service 



General Pershing, Ambassador Page, Admiral Sims and Lord Derby meet in London 



battle described, but the difference in the descriptions 
was delightful to note. Differences are nothing. The 
French are keen to teach, the Americans, if possible, 
keener still to learn, and each understands the other 
thoroughly to a common end. 

British instructors and American pupils understand 
each other equally well. I never was more amused, 
pleased, cheered, and bucked up than by watching 
British Sergeant instructors training American officer 
cadets. Imagine a typical British Sergeant, with 
three years of war behind him and with seven or more 
years of British military training before that, spending 
every ounce of his energy, every particle of his keen- 
ness, and every word of his vocabulary teaching young 
Americans what they will have to do in a few months' 
time, and the young Americans using every muscle of 
their body, all their alertness, and all their keenness, 
too, to make themselves ready for the fight that all 
are yearning to be in. 

Parties of American officer cadets dug line upon line 
of sham trenches, killed dummv bodies on the way, 
dashed through four lines of trenches, dug themselves 
in at the last, and began instant rapid fire at more boche 
targets. "Advance!" said the Sergeant. A second 
later "Go!" and the young chaps leaped out. "Kill 
'em sweet and clean! Clean killing is what we want! 
shouted the Sergeant. The young Americans were 
at the dummies and each dug his dummy with a wild 
"Yah!" or college yell or scream. "Go on!" roared 
the Sergeant; "there are more boches beyond. Clean 



killing is what we want." And the Americans charged 
at several more lines of dummies before they leaped 
into the front trench and began firing. 

Aside from the possibility of losses inflicted 
by submarines the mere question of ships 
for the carriage of the men, and the main- 
tenance of the steady flow of supplies neces- 
sary to support them in the field was a grave 
one. The people and the authorities of the 
United States had never dreamed that fewer 
than 1,500,000 men would be our quota in 
France, and the general belief was that unless 
the war ended in 191 8 another million would 
be needed. In the course of a heated con- 
troversy about the conduct of the war be- 
tween Senator Chamberlain, of Oregon, and 
Secretary Baker, the former asserted that 
five tons of shipping would be needed to 
transport each man to France, and maintain 
him there. The Secretary of War seemed to 
hold that 2 ! 2 tons would be a sufficient esti- 
mate. But in either event the demand upon 
our then non-existent shipping was pro- 
digious. The lower estimate meant for the 
army of 1,500,000 no less than 3, 750,000 tons — ■ 
more than the total tonnage of American 
ships in all waters. The higher amounted 



3i6 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Copyright by News Photo Service 
General St. Joseph Jacques Joffre, who commanded the French armies for the first seventeen months of the war, and was then 

retired Marshal of France. He is the idol of France 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



3i7 



to more than the total of new tonnage esti- 
mated to be built in 1918 with every ship 
yard working at highest capacity. At the 
best the demand for ships was staggering. 

To transport hundreds of thousands of 
men across a tempestuous ocean, and through 
a "war zone" 300 miles broad, full of lurking 
and sinister submarines, is a task to baffle 
the most skillful naval strategist. Canada 
made the amazing record of carrying across 
more than 450,000 men without the loss of 
one. For a time it appeared that the United 
States would equal, perhaps excel this record. 
For the transports under convoy went back 
and forth across the ocean ferry carrying 
troops of every sort and kind and not until 
February of 1918 did the first loss occur. 

It was just at dusk, on the 5th of that 
month that a stealthy German torpedo found 
the hull of the British transport Tuscania on 
which were 2,235 persons of whom 2,177 were 
American soldiers. The ship was off the 
northeast coast of Ireland and at the moment 



the coast line could be faintly seen through 
the gathering dusk and mist. She was under 
convoy and the wails of her siren and the 
imperative summons of her wireless quickly 
brought many supporting ships to her aid. 
Most fortunately the torpedo stroke did not 
touch oft the magazines, and that fact, to- 
gether with the admirable discipline of the 
men on board, reduced the loss of life greatly 
though still leaving it of shocking dimensions. 
Had it been an ordinary body of voyagers 
of such numbers, the scene would have been 
one of terror, panic and ultimately frightful 
loss of life. But the well drilled soldiers re- 
sponded to the summons of the siren and 
the shrill calls of the bugle. In good order 
they formed their lines on the deck, and 
awaited the boats which the sailors were 
making ready, or which were speeding over the 
water from other ships which had rushed to 
the rescue. Reports have it that they sang 
"The Star Spangled Banner" and "God 
Save the King" alternately. More flippant 




ne gun-gren 



tromblons 



or gun-grenades are another toy tor our soldiers, 
for use from a French soldier 



1 hey are receiving instructions 



3i8 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




Members of the University of California unit, engaged in transportation work on the Western front 



chroniclers declare that they were particular- 
ly vociferous in their rendering of "Where 
do we go from here, boys?" — a statement 
which sounds very American and very true 
when we recall the fact that in our Spanish 
war all the recognized battle hymns were set 
aside for "There'll be a hot time in the old 
town tonight." 

Notwithstanding the discipline, however, 
a great number of American soldiers were 
lost — at last accounts before the publication 
of this book, estimated at about 208 men. It 
was the first serious disaster to befall the 
American arms, and the nation after the 
first thrill of horror set its teeth and resolved 
highly to go on even more determinedly with 
the task of crushing German autocracy. 
That the transport of troops to France must 
at all times be attended with grave danger 
was recognized by all, and by none more than 
by the troops themselves. But there was, 
and will be no faltering in the task. 

Meanwhile such of our soldiers as had 
finished their intensive training in France 
had been sent to the front and reports began 
to dribble in about casualties. "Two Ameri- 
cans killed; 17 wounded," cried the New 
York newspapers one day in headlines that 
spread all across the first pages. Tucked 
away in an obscure corner of the same papers 
was the intelligence that the British casual- 
ties for that month had been 67,000. The 



American press was slow in getting a sense 
of the true proportions of the part played 
by various nations in the conflict. 

But the Yankee soldiers showed every in- 
dication from the very first of being a gallant 
and an effective force. Even our enemies 
bore witness to this, a dispatch, for example, 
in a Berlin paper bearing this ungrudging 
testimony to the part played in action by a 
small body of Americans: 

Independent American units have been thrown into 
the trench line. I he felt hat has given way to the 
English-fashioned steel helmet, and the whistling and 
bursting of the shells have become familiar sounds to 
American ears. 

For the first time since they have been participating 
as independent contingents the Americans have tasted 
the real earnestness of war, even though it was but a 
minor hand-to-hand scuffle. But this time the shells 
did not merely fly over their heads, but into the very 
trenches they had selected, and presently, with an 
infernal noise, these things which the young soldiers 
believed to be a firm protection began to quake and 
burst. 

And hard on the heels of this a firm attack by our 
onrushing Bavarian reserves forced the way into the 
American trenches, and musket shots and bursting 
hand grenades relieved the artillery, fire. 

Our new opponents made a most determined defense, 
and desperate hand-to-hand fighting set in. Butts 
of guns, fists, and hand grenades were freely brought 
into play, and many men fell to the ground before the 
rest gave up resistance and surrendered. After a 




URUGUAY 



Government: 
President: 
Area: 

Population: 

Date of severing relations: 
Army: 
Navy: 
Revenue: 
Expenditures. 

Commerce with Germany 
before the wax: 

Greatest exports: 
Reason for severing rela- 
tions: 



Republic 

Dr. Feliciano Viera 

72,127 square miles 

1,316.000 

October 7, 1917 

180,000 

1 cruiser, 1 destroyer 

$29,450,000 

$29,520,000 

Exports, $8,050,000; im- 
ports, $9,890,000 
Meat, wool, hides 

Following the example of 
other American Repub- 
lics 



__„ 




HONDURAS 



Government: 
President: 
Area: 

Population: 

Date of severing relations: 
Army: 
Navy: 

Commerce with Germany 
before the war: 

Greatest exports: 
Reason for severing rela- 
tions: 



Republic 

Francisco Bertrand 

44.275 square miles 

562.000 

May 18, 1917 

56,000 

None 

Exports. $164,607; imports, 

$521,837 
Bananas, cocoanuts 

Supported the United 
States on its attitude 
against Germany's sub- 
marine policy 



PERU 



Government: 

President: 

Area: 

Population: 

Date of severing relations: 

Army (peace basis): 

Navy: 

Commerce with Germany 
before the war: 

Greatest exports: 
Reason for severing rela- 
tions: 



Republic 
Dr. Jose Pardo 
722.461 square miles 
4,620.201 
October 5, 1917 
6,500 

4 cruisers. 1 destroyer, 2 
submarines 

Exports, $3,910,000; im- 
ports, $3,220,000 
Sugar, copper, cotton 

To protest against Ger- 
many's methods of war- 
fare 




NICARAGUA 



Government: 
President: 

Area: 

Population: 

Date of severing relations: 
Army: 
Navy: 

National Debt: 
Commerce with Germany 
before the war: 

Greatest exports: 
Reason for severing rela- 
tions: 



Republic 

General Emiliano Chamor- 

ro 
49.200 square miles 
703.540 
May 19, 1917 
40.000 
None 
$5,500,000 

Exports, $578,100; imports, 
$403,515 

Bananas, timber 

Failure of Germany to re- 
spect International Law 
and to back the United 
States up in her declara- 
tion of war 




320 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



bare hour the German storming troops were back in 
their own trenches with booty and prisoners. 

There they stood before us — these young men from 
the land of liberty. They were sturdy and sportsman- 
like in build. Good-natured smiles radiated from their 
blue eyes, and they were quite surprised that we did 
not propose to shoot them down, as they had been led 
in the French training camp to believe we would do. 

First in the 
field were the 
American en- 
gineers who at 
once set to 
work building 
the works nec- 
essary at our 
various coast- 
line bases, 
and at the in- 
terior points 
selected for 
the final train- 
in g or our 
troops. They 
turned in to 
help our allies 
too, and built 
many miles of 
railroads and 
highways 
needed back 
of the French 
lines. They 
were as ready 
to drop the 
pick and 
shovel for the 
machine gun 
and rifle as 
were their 
progenitors 
the pioneers 
who plowed 
with a long- 
barrelled muz- 
zle-load ing 
rifle over their 
shoulder and a wary eye for Indians in the 
thickets. 

To the first American soldiers to fall on 
the soil of France is assured a certain im- 
mortality. Their graves are in a little Lor- 
raine village, or what the boche shells have 
left of it, near the ruined walls of a little 
church. Many, many French graves are 
there too, but for long the grateful villagers 
ignored their own dead to keep the resting 




A characteristic snapshot of the Kaiser 



places of the Americans who had come across 
the sea to help them, banked with fresh cut 
flowers of the field. A French major general, 
when the three were laid away, paid them 
honor in words which touch the heart, and 
will ever live as a fitting expression of French 
gratitude to those who came from the United 

States to die 
for liberty: 

Men ! These 
graves, the first 
to be dug in our 
soil of France at 
but a short dis- 
tance from the 
enemy, are as a 
mark of the 
mighty hand of 
our Allies, firmly 
clinging to the 
common task, 
confirming the 
\\ ill of the people 
and the Army of 
the United States 
to fight with us 
to a finish, ready 
to sacrifice so long 
as it will be neces- 
sary, until final 
victory, for the 
noblest of causes 
— that of the lib- 
erty of nations, 
of the weak as 
well as of the 
mighty. There- 
fore the death of 
this humble cor- 
poral and these 
two private sol- 
diers appears to 
us in extraordi- 
nary grandeur. 

We ask there- 
fore that the 
mortal remainsof 
these young men 
be left here, be 
left for ever to France. We will, in the fullness of peace, 
inscribe indelibly upon their tombs: "Here lie the first 
soldiers of the Republic of the United States to fall upon 
the soil of France in the cause of justice and liberty." 
And the passer-by will stop and uncover his head. 
Travellers through France and from France, from 
every Allied nation, from the United States, those who, 
in reverence and heart, will come to visit these battle- 
fields of France, will deliberately go out of their way 
to visit these graves, and bring to them tribute of 
respect and gratitude. 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



321 




General Pershing, Commander of the American Expeditionary forces in France 



322 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




General Pershing arriving in France. He is here shown passing 

and D 

Corporal Gresham, Private Enright, Private Hay, 
in the name of France I thank you. God receive your 
souls. Adieu. 

The statistics of the great war are startling 
in their proportions and baffling in their sig- 
nificance. Never was so great a proportion 
of the world's people at war, or upon the 
verge of it. Of the world's total population 
of 1,819,803,000 no fewer than 1,474,873,000 
are either at war with Germany, or belong 
to nations that have broken off diplomatic 
relations with her. The following table 
gives the list, with the date of each nation's 
entrance upon the war, and its population, 
including colonial possessions: 

Nations at War 
1914. 

Serbia, July 28 4,547,000 

Russia, August 1 175,137,000 

France, August 3 87,429,000 

Belgium, August 4 22,571,000 

Great Britain, August 4 439,959,000 

Montenegro, August 7 516,000 

Japan, August 23 73,807,000 



before the guards of honor, accompanied by Generals Pelletier 
umas 

1915. 

Italy, May 23 37,398,000 

San Marino, June 2 12,000 

1916. 

Portugal, March 10 15,208,000 

Roumania, August 27 7,508,000 

1917. 

United States, April 6 113,168,000 

Cuba, April 8 2,500,000 

Panama, April 9 427,000 

Greece, July 16 4,821,000 

Siam, July 22 8,149,000 

China, August 14 436,000,000 

Brazil, October 26 24,700,000 

Peru, October 5 4,620,000 

Total 1,458,477,000 

Relations Broken 

Argentina, 8,000,000 

Bolivia, April 13 2,890,000 

Costa Rica, April 26 431,000 

Guatemala, April 28 2,003,000 

Liberia, May 10 1,800,000 

Honduras, May 18 562,000 

Santo Domingo, June 17 710,000 

Total 16,396,000 



THE NAT 10 

Central Powers. 

Austria, July 28, 1914 49,882,000 

Germany, August I, 1914 80,661,000 

Turkey, November 3, 1914 21,274,000 

Bulgaria, October 4, 1915 4,755,000 

Total 156,572,000 

Recapitulation. 

At war with Germany 1,458,477,000 

Relations broken 16,396,000 

Anti-German 1,474,873,000 

Germanic allies 156,572,000 

Neutral world 188,358,000 

World's population 1,819,803,000 

N. b. Several of the lesser Central American states 
are at this writing on the point of declaration of war. 

Such are the odds against the Central 
Powers measured by the populations of the 
nations opposing them. This is, however, 
a misleading method of measurement for 
none of the millions of Chinese, and few of 
the equally teeming multitudes of British 
East Indians will be brought into the conflict, 
while it is unlikely that the Central and 
South American Republics will ever set a 

; 

fcT 



NS AT WAR 



M 



squadron in the field. Measured by man 
power under arms the disparity is not so 
great, though even it makes the more mar- 
vellous Germany's continued power of not 
resistance alone but of a persistent offensive. 
The figures as compiled by the Secretary of 
War are as follows: 

There are 38,000,000 bearing arms in the war — 
27,000,000 on the side of the Allies and 10,600,000 on 
the side of the Central Powers, thus distributed: 

Against Germany's 7,000,000, Austria's 3,000,000, 
Turkey's 300,000, and Bulgaria's 300,000, are arrayed 
the following armed forces: Russia, 9,000,000; France, 
6,000,000; Great Britain, 5,000,000; Italy, 3,000,000; 
Japan, 1,400,000; United States, more than 1,000,000; 
China, 541,000; Rumania, 320,000; Serbia, 300,000; 
Belgium, 300,000; Greece, 300,000; Portugal, 200,000; 
Montenegro, 40,000; Siam, 36,000; Cuba, 11,000, and 
Liberia, 400. 



Total Casualties for this and Preceding Yfars 

Great Britain 85,000 1,300,000 

France 75,000 3,800,000 

Italy 300,000 90,000 

Germany 665,000 4,010,160 

Austria-Hungary 1,000,000 2,500,000 

But not even this estimate is to be accepted 
without certain qualifications. Germany 




© Committee on Public Information 
Treating American wounded at a tent hospital while waiting their turn to be transported to the well-equipped base hospitals 



324 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




© Underwood & Underwood 
The arrival of the American contingent in London on August 15, 1917, gave the English an opportunity to express their 

enthusiasm over America's entry into the war 



has used the people of her captured territories 
ruthlessly to increase her military strength. 
The captive citizens of France and Belgium 
are forced into labor in Germany, releasing 
German workmen for service in the trenches. 
In the Eastern field the methods are even 
harsher and there is no doubt that thousands 
of Russians, Serbians and 
Roumanians are forced 
into the German ranks. 
The creation of the new 
Kingdom of Poland, 
mainly out of Russian 
territory, was instantly 
followed by the attempted 
organization of a Polish 
army to serve Germany. 
The same action seems 
probable in the new re- 
public of Ukrainia, which 
was in progress of creation 
as this book went to press. 
But, on the other hand, 
despite the endeavors of 
the Germans to keep their 
army up to its numerical 
strength, they have not 
been able to maintain its 
quality- In the ranks are 



thousands of boys beneath the normal military 
age, and even more old men who have passed 
far beyond its upper limit. The reserves have 
been seriously depleted, and in 191 8 were 
estimated at but 800,000 men, including boys 
seventeen to nineteen years of age. As for 
the period of the war, the average annual 




Some of the American engineers who 



© Underwood & Underwood 
vere with the British at Cambrai 



THE NATIONS 




© Comm. Public Information 
United States marines on their way to their training quarters in France after disembarking at the American port 

losses of Germany have exceeded a million 



and a quarter, it is clear that, if this rate be 
continued, the reserves will fall short by at 
least 450,000 annually' of making good the 
losses. In the face of this steady attrition 
the German power cannot long endure. 

Nevertheless the very stars in their courses 




O Underwood &Under\vo. 

American troops cleaning their machine guns in a village street in France. This 

most important task, for if the gun jams, it may mean the death of the gunner 



seem to fight for the Kaiser and the opening 
months of 191 8 brought to his arms — or per- 
haps to his diplomacy — the most significant 
victories of the war. 

As this edition of the Nations at War is 
closed the world faces a situation which may 
operate for a sudden and almost unlooked- 
for, peace — but a peace 
that would be pro-German 
— or may indefinitely pro- 
long the war. As an 
effective belligerent Russia 
is out of the fighting. The 
faction of her revolution- 
ists that seized control, 
surrendered in the end 
abjectly to Germany, and 
only civil war can undo 
that act. Without sign- 
ing a treaty of peace the 
Bolshevist leaders declar- 
ed that the state of war 
between Russia and Ger- 
many no longer existed 
and demobilized their 
armies. This freed for 
service in the west practi- 
cally all the German troops 
at that time on the Rus- 
sian front. The province 




Our first clash with the Huns. At daybreak, Saturday, November 3rd, 1917, a detachment of twenty American infantrymen 
and two French veterans in a salient on the front line were attacked by two hundred Germans after being subjected to a severe 
artillery fire for an hour. It marked the baptism of blood of our soldiers 



r 






«»- 66. 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



327 




© Underwood & Undcrw 
Five of the first Americans captured by the Germans being questioned by a German officer 



of Ukrainia was erected into a separate state, 
and its abundant crops will henceforth be at 
Germany's command. 

Moreover, with the Bolshevist government 
wheedled into demobilizing its troops the 
Germans contemptuously kicked over the 
make-believe peace and advanced into Russia. 

The disorganized armies fled before them 



— Trotzky, Minister of Foreign Affairs for 
the makeshift government, demanded terms 
of enduring peace. Four billions of indemnity 
and the provinces of Poland, Lithuania, Cour- 
land, Esthonia, Riga and Moon Island, was 
the measure of loot the Huns demanded, and 
the Bolshevists — whose cardinal principle 
had been "no annexations and no indem- 




\mencan soil 1 



© Underwood & Underwood 
n France. The graves of the first American soldiers killed on the western front in a little cemetery just outside 
the ruined village of Fethelemont, in Lorraine 



328 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 




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On March 21, 1918, the Germans launched their strongest drive on the Western front. It had been heralded for months 
before, so openly that it seemed as if the talk might be merely a screen for activities elsewhere. The drive covered a front of 
fifty miles at the start, its centre aimed at Amiens. The traditional mass formations of the German army were used in 
unprecedented volume; their losses were in proportion. The shaded portion of the map shows the extent of the German 
advance up to March 31, 1918. 



nities," bowed to the lash and surrendered 
all. 

Thus strengthened it would appear in- 
evitable that Germany should soon put her 
fortunes to the supreme test by a colossal 
drive on the Allied lines in France. In the 
early months of 1918 there was every indica- 
tion that preparations for such a drive were in 
progress, and feverish preparations to meet 
it were being pressed by the Allies. The 



whole world waited to see whether after 
three and a half years of war Germany could 
do what she failed to do in the first months 
and break through to Paris, or shatter the 
Allies' left front and win Calais. 

At this point, with Germany never more 
encouraged and the Allies calmly confi- 
dent that they would yet win the day for 
humanity and democracy, this record must 
be closed. 











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